The boys moved with their mother to Fayetteville from Colombia four months ago, joining their father who is in the construction business. I think it's going to be good for us. Each one of us have our computer, and we can work on our level. Foreign language dictionaries, books and tapes on how to order food while vacationing abroad once accounted for the bulk of library cultural offerings as recently as 10 years ago. But metro Atlanta libraries have stocked shelves with a growing number of fiction and nonfiction works in various languages during the past five years.
Most librarians offer some sort of collection in Spanish.
The Chamblee branch of the DeKalb County library system provides books in Spanish, Korean, Vietnamese and Chinese. Still, it's not the volume and variety most librarians would like to offer if they had the budget. The Newnan-Coweta Library received a grant and in less than a year has purchased 300 children's books in Spanish. You wouldn't know it by looking at the shelves because 75 percent of the books are checked out. They need to purchase more, said Janet Lewis, youth services librarian.