Centering Essential Immigrant Help on the Library Web site: The American Place (TAP) at Hartford Public Library

If public libraries are going to provide essential information to immigrants, they must center their efforts to help on streamlining government Web sites. The necessity for this library approach comes because of the way government agencies have chosen to communicate with immigrants and others in need of government services. This article details how Hartford Public Library developed The American Place, an electronic information center, on its Web site. In the process, staff members had to become expert in finding, analyzing, organizing and communicating information on many different kinds of immigration and refugee institutions. Other public libraries about to organize or improve the electronic information for immigrants on their Web sites will find much here to help them in their work.