Walking into the Seattle Public Library you will find several floors of books, DVDs, CDs, magazines, and newspapers with many of them in different languages.  This is because the library serves a diverse population and many languages are spoken by its patrons.  The same can be said about prison libraries, but you wont find the range of materials that is needed to serve the different languages.  Interlibrary loans can be the saving grace as we try to fill the language needs of our patrons.  Just a few weeks ago I ran a bibliography of Russian history books in Russian.  Surprisenly there were quite a few and the patron has been working his way down the list, reading in his native language.  The only down side is that it could take awhile to work his way down the list.  However, as there may only be one patron who speaks a certain language, interlibrary loan is the most cost effective method to meet the needs of these patrons.

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