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With nearly 80,000 books in various languages, the Brooklyn Public Library last week opened its Multilingual Center with the hope that it will open more doors for the borough's immigrant community.
The center, located at the central library at Grand Army Plaza, offers literature and computer software in five of the borough's most-spoken foreign languages: Chinese, Haitian Creole, Hebrew, Russian and Spanish. Other foreign-language books, which until now have been scattered throughout the 60 libraries in the Brooklyn system, are also available at the Multilingual Center, library officials said. In addition, the center is providing 60 foreign-language magazines and newspapers.
Linda Locke, a library spokeswoman, said there are a "tremendous number of people who need library services who may not be able to access it through the English language."
"The center is important, frankly, because the library needs to make sure it has a constituency for the future," said the library's executive director, Martin...