Donation of Turkish-language books expands Charlottetown library's multilingual collection

The Charlottetown Library Learning Centre has added another language section to its multilingual collection.

Dilek Yesil, a member of the Turkish community in P.E.I., donated 20 Turkish-language books of a variety of genres to the library. 

"It wasn't easy to choose, but there are children's books… there are fictions, poetry and there are authors who are internationally recognized Turkish authors," Yesil said. 

"We have been living here for five years now, and this Island gave us so many opportunities." 

Donating books to the library was a way to give back to the community while also honouring the memory of her father, who died of lung cancer 25 years ago. 

"He valued education and especially new language learning," Yesil said. 

"There is a saying in Turkish: to speak a new language is to gain a new soul. This is one of the reasons that we donated these books." 

'Cultural richness'

Before moving to P.E.I., Yesil connected with and started building what was then a rather small Turkish community. 

Now, there are more than 100 people who are part of that community. 

"Islanders are not those who [are] born here and raised here. We are also the Islanders who choose to make here as our homes, and we are proud to contribute [to] the cultural richness here," she said. 

"We know them, so maybe it's a good idea to know us." 

Yesil said three of the donated books stand out to her as being important contributions: a Turkish edition of Anne of Green Gables, a picture dictionary and a book by the founder of the modern-day republic of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Atatürk. 

Meeting the community's needs

Until Yesil's donation, the Charlottetown library had no Turkish-language books, said Krystal Dionne, a regional librarian with the P.E.I. Public Library Service. 

While they've only been on the shelf for a few weeks, some of them have already been borrowed. 

"I think that the library — as we evolve into these community hubs as we have been doing — it just provides people with exposure to new cultures, new ideas, new information," Dionne said.

"This is just another addition to that... way of interacting with our community."

The library is always looking to expand its multilingual collection, which currently features about a dozen languages, Dionne said. 

But material in some languages is easier to access than others, she said, which can make it a bit more challenging to expand the number of multilingual titles compared to English ones. 

"We're definitely here to serve the entire population, and as our community grows and changes and evolves we want to meet their needs in the best way that we can." 

Dionne said the library benefits from donations like Yesil's. 

"To have this addition given to us in such a lovely way is really wonderful to see and it really helps us expand our growing collection," she said.  

"It's just positive for everyone to learn new things and to always be learning more about what's going on in other parts of the world and other cultures and other languages."