[Michlib-l] Community Language Collection Help - Results!

[Diana Marable]

Thank you to everyone who replied! There was so much good information!
Here are all the replies I got compiled by languages. (The notes after each vendor are from replies, not my own.)
I was also very excited to learn about the International Collections Librarians' Roundtable! That information is at the very bottom.
Thank you again for all your help!
-Diana
Arabic:
Sawa Books - http://sawabooks.com/ - Sawa is our main Arabic vendor. They're pretty good. The only complaint I have is that their website does not allow right-clicking at all, so if I need an image from them, I have to screen shot it and edit. They will provide the order in a spreadsheet format if you ask though. That's helpful for me as I pretty much live and die by my spreadsheets at work.
Asian Languages:
Tsai Fong - https://www.bookswindow.com/ - Tsai Fong is one of our main Asian language vendors - specifically East Asian - Chinese (both traditional and simplified characters), Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese. We do not order Vietnamese books as we don't have a population looking for them. Tsai Fong can be a little more expensive than some of the other Asian vendors, but they have the largest selection of some of the languages. Tsai Fong also is not "check-in friendly". Their invoices have no rhyme or reason to the order so it can sometimes be difficult to check-in items from them as you often have to go by ISBN.

Pan Asian - https://cjkv.com/homepage.asp - We just started ordering from this company last year and personally, as the one who checks the orders in and prepares them for the librarian, I love them. They have their own stock codes/numbers for their books and those are on both the books and the invoice. It makes it very easy to check the items in when they arrive. They are also Chinese (both traditional and simplified), Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.

We've also used Kinokuniya (https://usa.kinokuniya.com/) for Japanese and Bandibooks (https://www.bandibookus.com/front/main.do) for Korean. I have no complaints about either of them.
French:
Lireka Books - https://www.lireka.com/en - Lireka is our main French language vendor. They're pretty easy to work with and things arrive quickly. The only drawback is they aren't a vendor who uses POs and invoices us - we have to put the order together and then they have to provide us with a pay link so we can pay by credit card.
Orca Book Publishers - https://www.orcabook.com/  for French and Indigenous languages for younger readers.
German/Portuguese:
Amazon is really our biggest vendor for German & Portuguese. We get some French & Spanish language materials from them as well. We also use both Baker & Taylor and Ingram for Spanish. If you choose to order on Amazon, you should note that for some reason the Amazon.UK store will no longer send to business addresses, so there has to be another third-party seller if you want a book that lists on Amazon.UK.
Hebrew books :
https://israelbookshop.com/collections/childrens-books-in-hebrew?page=5 has many popular books including Matilda, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Wonder, and more...and also picture books like the very hungry caterpillar.
https://pashoshim.com/collections/books Pete the Cat, Winnie the Pooh, and many more
https://www.gefenpublishing.com/category.asp?id=436 some of these might be older (just based on the covers), but there are also classics like Eric Carle and Goodnight Moon
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/b/kids-books/_/N-1z13pjrZ8qc looks like Barnes and Noble has some too.
India:
DK Agencies (http://dkagencies.com/) and Tulika Books (https://www.tulikabooks.com/) are the two vendors we use the most for Indian sub-continent languages. Tulika is all children's books while DK has both children and adult items.

Russian/Ukrainian:
Sentrum Bookstore - https://sentrumbookstore.com/ - Sentrum is our main supplier for Russian and Ukrainian books. We have a decent-sized Russian collection. We've been rapidly adding to our Ukrainian collection with the influx of Ukrainian refugees.
General Children’s:
Language Lizard - https://www.languagelizard.com/
International Collections Librarians' Roundtable: We have a great group of librarians (including myself) that purchase in other languages for all populations. We have a database of vendors with information on the languages they offer as well as any comments from librarians who've used them in the past. You can also quickly send a message to the entire group on specific questions/issues you may have. Here's the email to subscribe iclrmi+subscribe at groups.io<mailto:iclrmi%2Bsubscribe at groups.io>  or you can go to our website https://groups.io/g/iclrmi <https://groups.io/g/iclrmi>



[An open book. Text below says "ELPL: East Lansing Public Library."]<http://www.elpl.org/>  Diana Marable (She/Her) | Technical Services Assistant

  East Lansing Public Library

  950 Abbot Rd | East Lansing, MI 48823

  (517) 351-2420 | dmarabl at cityofeastlansing.com
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