The Sagrada Familia library is located in a neighbourhood of A Coruña (a city with a population of 245.000 in the Galicia region of north-west Spain) which has seen many demographic changes in recent years. New residents have arrived in the area from all over the world, bringing with them a diversity of cultural interests and needs. The library has had to respond quickly in order to create services and programmes to foster:
- knowledge of Spanish language, customs and culture;
- cross-cultural understanding between the neighbourhood’s various residents;
- the creation of information links with associations and NGOs dealing with immigrants;
- understanding of the immigrant community’s needs and requirements by reference to the library’s funding, resources and activities;
- the promotion of the library as an instrument for the integration of the immigrant community.

To this end, our starting point is:
- the integration of services among different types of user;
- the flexible use of the library’s services to reflect the specific interests of the user population;
- joint working programmes, allowing for user participation, with user groups, associations and NGOs.