Abstract:
The North Carolina Foreign Language Center was born in 1975. It is now housed at the Gillespie Street Branch Library in Fayetteville. The center was created through the Library Services and Construction Act, which mandated that certain funds to go toward materials for non-native English speakers. At the time, libraries throughout the state held some materials for non-native English speakers; however, the collections tended to be small and focused on particular groups. Marian Leath, then Assistant State Librarian, and David Warren, Director of Cumberland County Library, wrote the grant proposal for the North Carolina Foreign Language Center. The center now houses over 20,400 books and 2,000 tapes in over seventy languages. Materials are available to libraries throughout the state and nation through interlibrary loan. Cost in the interlibrary loan process has caused difficulties for the language center, but no other effective means of getting the materials to patrons has been found.