Competency C

Articulate the importance of designing programs and services supportive of diversity, inclusion, and equity for clientele and employees

Introduction

Diversity, inclusion, and equity are founding principles of librarianship. Diversity specifically is listed as a core value and also found in many ALA policies like the ALA’s Libraries: An American Value document which states that “we value our nation’s diversity and strive to reflect that diversity by providing a full spectrum of resources and service to the communities we serve (American Library Association, 1999).” Librarians are challenged to bring diversity to all aspects of their practice through programming, collection development, staffing, and archiving decisions. It is through this commitment to diversity, inclusion, and equity that libraries ensure they are serving the entirety of the community.

Diversity can often be thought of narrowly to mean cultural diversity, but the full definition of diversity includes both material diversity and acquired diversity. Material diversity is defined as “gender, race and ethnicity, physical and cognitive ability, age, and sexual orientation and identity” while acquired diversity includes different education levels, income levels, family structures, housing status and immigration status (Wong, Figueroa, Cardenas-Dow, 2018, P. 55). Achieving true diversity in programming and collection development is a broad initiative. By looking at all the possibly diverse characteristics of a community, librarians can design programming that speaks to a broader set of needs.

Inclusion is that idea that for diversity to blossom there needs to be an environment where these diverse perspectives are respected and valued. This means taking special effort to bring the voices of historically discriminated against populations forward. Efforts need to be made to seek out voices which in the past have been overlooked or undervalued.

Equity is the recognition that certain structural and political systems disadvantage some people. At times, more resources need to be allocated to these populations to bring them into parity with other populations. For example, foster-youth in our schools will need more attention due to the disadvantages that manifest from being in the foster system. 

The final way that librarians support diversity, inclusion, and equity is by hiring a workforce and creating a work environment with these ideals in mind. A diverse staff working on programming and collections will naturally allow more perspectives to shape the work product. But, we cannot rely solely on a diverse workforce. Structures must be built into libraries so that employees can work effectively in diverse cultural situations. Wong, Figueroa, and Cardenas-Dow (2018) lay out five essential elements for a culturally competent organization. They challenge organizations to not only value diversity, but to have the “capacity for cultural self-assessment” and be “conscious of the dynamics inherent when cultures interact.”

Competency development

Naively, I would have told you at the start of the program that I did have a good understanding of diversity. In my own life I have moved 13 times including a five year stint as an immigrant living in rural France. Through these experiences of living outside the dominant culture I have learned how often the dominant culture can exclude others unintentionally. Although my personal circumstances have helped provide a solid base for my understanding of diversity, my true journey to understanding diversity, inclusion, and equity began through the reading done for the SJSU MLIS program. In one of my first classes, INFO 200, my chosen book review pointed out the structural challenges inherent in many automated systems. This bias is built into the system from the start and thus require librarians to have focused efforts on equity. Discussions within this class opened my eyes to many diverse information communities that I had not previously considered. Each of the communities that my classmates chose to study represented an often underrepresented community. I was challenged to think about how Libraries were serving all of these communities with programming and collections.

Later in INFO 204 we investigated how these values can be supported by library management policies and structures. INFO 210 highlighted a drag-queen story time and we discussed how this supported children from rainbow families within the pubic. Even in a small one credit class, INFO 281 Libraries and Community Partnerships, diversity and inclusion were addressed. In one of our discussions I learned about a library project called War Ink that reached out to the veteran community. Each of these readings within the curriculum broadened by understanding of how many different diversities there were to be addressed and also how libraries were building programming that was diverse, inclusive, and equitable.

In my professional experience working in the school library environment, I am now particularly aware of the value of diversity in collection development. One example of this was a collection analysis project that I conducted last year to verify that our collection reflected the diversity of our community. I found that our community was roughly 35% White, 22% Asian, 18% South Asian, and 5% Hispanic and the collection included 121 Christmas picture books and 0 picture books on Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Day of the Dead. Our collection did not represent diverse world holidays and was not aligned with the library value of diversity. Although I have not done a full diversity audit on our school collection yet I have looked to enforce more diversity in my purchasing decisions. For my most recent order I made sure to include texts from the perspective of non neural typical characters, immigrant experiences, and from native people authors. Including a small diversity checklist will help to bring our collection into balance over time.

Evidence Description

INFO 204 – Communication Case Study

I chose this case study which looks at the situation where a patron and librarian get into a heated conflict due to a language barrier. I detail several different ways that public libraries can support a trend of increased diversity within a community including hiring a more diverse staff but also as improving the structure of the library organization so that staff are better equipped to work in a cultural diverse environment.

Info 240 – Coding for Accessibility

This paper is a study of how small changes in coding decisions will increase accessibility for those using screen readers for accessing web pages. I chose this because it speaks specifically to how awareness of this community’s challenges makes for improved accessibility. As librarians we are obligated by our code of ethics and other librarianship standards to make accessibility a priority. Increasing accessibility to the vision imared community is just one small part of this challenge.

INFO 210 – Discussion Drag Queen Story Time

This piece is a discussion post on the purpose and challenges of programming for rainbow families. Rainbow families look different then the heterotypical family arrangement and may include two fathers, two mothers, or any number of other combinations of LGBTQ+ family members. Creating programming inclusive of these community members is not without difficult challenges but our library bill of rights and ethics demand that as librarians we rise to the challenge.

INFO 200 – Weapons of Math Destruction Book Review

I chose this book review because it demonstrates that relying on technology is not a sufficient solution for managing discrimination and bias. This fascinating book details how bias is implicitly written into many algorithms and this bias is hidden by the supposed unbiased technology. In many cases these algorithms end up perpetuating racial and economic inequalities creating systems that are impossible to overcome. This book review reminds all information professionals that we have a responsibility to counteract these bias algorithms and the systems they create. This book was pivotal in my understanding of modern technology algorithms and I recommend it as essential reading.

Concluding Remarks

Each individual in our community brings a unique and valuable perspective. Our libraries are better and stronger when all these perspectives are represented. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are core library values that are expressed through decisions made during collection development, programming, staffing, and a library’s management structures.

References

American Library Association. (February 3, 1999). Libraries: An American Value. Issues and Advocacy. Intellectual Freedom. Retrieved August 21, 2001, from https://www.ala.org/advocacy/intfreedom/americanvalue

Wong, P., Figueroa, M., Cardenas-Dow, M. (2018). Diversity, Equity of Access, and Social Justice. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services today: An introduction. (Second edition, pp. 52-68). Rowman & Littlefield.

Last Updated September 11, 2021 10:10 am