The Wilshire Branch Library, 149 N. St. Andrews Place, serves a very diverse population and includes book collections curated for its specific ethnic communities, including those who speak Spanish, Korean and Bengali.  A few months ago, Wilshire Branch librarian Madeleine Ildefonso was chatting with frequent customer Enkhtuya Sonompel, the education director for the Los Angeles Mongolian Association (LAMA), which works with Angelenos who have roots in Mongolia (in fact, the Wilshire-Western area is home to one of the largest populations of Mongolians in the United States).  Ms. Sonompel explained that Mongolians in Los Angeles are eager to both study and celebrate their own language, as well as learn English.  So Ms. Ildefonso felt that it would be a natural extension to host a small Mongolian collection at the library.  Ms. Sonompel brought the director of LAMA into the conversation , along with Chima Anyadike-Danes, a student learning the Mongolian language, and they came up with the idea of a book exchange with a public library in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.  The Los Angeles library would send books in English to Mongolia, and librarians there would, in turn, send books in Mongolian to Los Angeles.
But they didn’t stop there.  To make sure the books have company on their months-long journey, and to more personally represent the donors, Ms. Silveira created “Wilshire,” a stuffed California grizzly bear dressed in a Los Angeles logo T-shirt and Mongolian-style vest, to go along for the ride.  According to Ms. Silveira, Wilshire and the books will travel by ship to Tianjin, China, then by rail to the Mongolian border, and then another train to their final destination in Ulaanbaatar.  And when the library there receives the English books, it will send back a shipment of books in Mongolian, which will become part of Wilshire Library’s permanent collection and will be available for local Mongolian community members who want to keep up with their own language.149 N. St. Andrews Pl.
(323) 957-4550
