Dharamshala, 5th August: Prior to the outbreak, a typical storytime at the Brooklyn Public Library’s Greenpoint branch would have had 40 participants: babies, toddlers, and caregivers gathered for songs and stories read aloud. During the peak of the outbreak, Tenzin Kalsang, a children’s librarian, established an online Tibetan-English storytime, and up to 20,000 people tuned in. Even though it would be an entirely new experience for Kalsang, who was born in Tibet, she offered to lead a bilingual program in Tibetan and English when the library relocated storytime online in the spring of 2020. Her bilingual lessons became a viral success thanks to her personal network on Facebook and word of mouth, reaching families and students as far as Germany, India, and Australia.
Kalsang’s online storytime will be suspended indefinitely while the library reopens for in-person visits. Regular programming with COVID-19 safety protocols necessitates a great amount of time and effort. In the meantime, she’s busy establishing a community in other ways while she waits to return to her multilingual storytime. Kalsang was recently interviewed by Tricycle to learn more about her storytime and what’s coming up next.
Kelsang had difficulty visiting the library when she was younger. As a result, her purpose was to make literature available to the whole public. She began doing both because she adored children. Kelsang is aware that many Tibetan-origin families in the United States cannot afford to bring their children to the library for storytime. When the pandemic struck, she began translating and telling children’s English books in Tibetan online. She is also collaborating with a volunteer-based group in India to create kid-friendly Tibetan books. Her community is vital to her, and this online group is like one huge family. “Community offers us a sense of wholeness,” she remarked.
Tenzin Kalsang works at the Brooklyn Public Library as a children’s librarian. She received her Library of Science Masters (MLIS) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison after graduating from Smith College. She was born in Tibet, reared in a Tibetan refugee camp in India, and has a tremendous desire to work with children and assist others, particularly those from traditionally underprivileged communities.
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