The Garden City Public Library has increased its audio collection of foreign language learning materials to include 15 foreign languages as well as English as a second language. Among the audio language courses available to library patrons for personal study are Arabic, Chinese, both Cantonese and Mandarin, Croatian, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Modern Greek, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Yiddish. The easy to use CD courses offer business and pleasure travelers the opportunity to learn the basics of a foreign language before departing on their trips. In addition there are more advanced courses avail-able for several of the more popular languages, including French, German, Spanish and Italian, for those who want to improve their skills and demonstrate expert mastery of a language.

RosettaStone

Subscription Ends

Recently the Library's subscription to the RosettaStone online language courses ended. The agreement with RosettaStone was part of a group contract negotiated by the Nassau Library System (NLS). Public response was positive, but RosettaStone decided to discontinue offering the online product to public libraries after December 31, 2007. NLS hopes to put together a contract for another web-based, language-learning system soon.

Whether plans for the New Year include business or vacation travel, or the decision to master a foreign language, the Garden City Public Library's foreign language instructional collection has been expanded to meet residents' needs. For more information about the audio foreign language collection, contact Ann M. Garnett, refer-ence librarian, at 742-8405.