The Project aims to ease the integration of immigrants with language barriers –those who don’t speak Spanish as their mother tongue-. Developing this kind of programmes is necessary because of the short term evolution of Spanish society. Open Library addresses this new reality by providing new services and activities in public libraries with an intercultural approach.

 
The objectives of the project are to attract immigrant people to public libraries, to promote reading, and to spread knowledge of other cultures. The programme is intended to provide library collections in different languages, and to develop Cultural Interest Centres –multicultural and multilingual- in the libraries of the Autonomous Community of Madrid.

The programme develops multilingual library services (language self-learning, Spanish for foreigners, reading in other languages, digital literacy, active job-seeking workshops, etc.), aimed to promote social cohesion, and attachment to the community.

The programme team is formed by librarians of the participant libraries, the bilingual cultural mediators (who speak Spanish and one of the mother tongues of the immigrant population) and two library coordinators (one for Madrid and the other for the rest of participant municipalities).

The bulk of the project implementation is carried out by mediators, although librarians play a vital role regarding follow-up and continuity of the project.

• Creation and maintenance of multilingual collections (in Arabic, Russian, Polish, Bulgarian, Romanian, Chinese), which didn’t exist before 2006.
• Creation of the subsection “Information to the [Immigrant] Community".
• Creation of intercultural spaces.
• Each year, 15.000 to 20.000 people have accessed the library for the first time. In this regard it is worth noting the approach and involvement of Moroccan women.
• Collaboration with Civil Society and other institutions working for immigrants.
• Library staff are assisting meetings on multicultural awareness and workshops in which “good practices” from libraries of other countries are presented and analyzed.
• The visibility of libraries has been increased. They are now seen as an accessible centre that contributes to equal opportunities through non-formal lifelong learning. Besides, it also favours coexistence by spreading the knowledge of the different cultures present in the municipality.

• Yearly surveys reveal high levels of satisfaction among users of the service (over 4 points out of 5, on average)
• The number of attendees is registered, as well as their comments.
• In-deph interviews are conducted in order to find out the specific needs of the users, and how the project may address them.
• Internal Evaluation Surveys are answered by mediators once their contract has expired.
• 2009 María Moliner National Prize of Reading Promotion for municipalities under 20.000 inhabitants, under the “Social Integration” category, for the support to immigrant population, promoting coexistence and participation among people from different cultures and nationalities. 
• 2012 “Open Library” was selected as a “good practice” by the Cities of Migration programme of the Maytree Foundation.

General population; immigrant collectives more directly.

The project is funded by the European Social Fund and the Ministry of Labour and Security (central government administration), however, the project is managed by the Regional Ministry of Education and Employment (Autonomous Community of Madrid).

The budget for the last edition of the project accounted for 443.169 Euros.