Southern California Libraries Avoided serious damage caused by torrential rains, by William Jiang, MLS

Rains that hit southern California during the week of Christmas 2010, later left a foot of snow in New York City, have done little damage to libraries in the South California. There are reports of tens of thousands of dollars in damage in Southern California, floods and landslides, however, when I spoke with a representative of the Library Cooperative of Southern California, she told me that she had not heard of a single library that was closed by the storm. This is great news for the Latino community of Southern California. According to the 2010 census Hispanics are the largest ethnic group in southern California Latinos are nearly 41% of the population followed by a little less than 40% of Caucasians and 10% from Asia and around 7 % African American. The fact that the Latino community depends on the libraries of Southern California is evident in studies of use among Latino communities in the United States. Happy New Year! This is good news in late 2010.