Ethnic Diversity in Library and Information Science

Citation

Duckett, B. (2001), "Ethnic Diversity in Library and Information Science", Library Review, Vol. 50 No. 5, pp. 256-257. https://doi.org/10.1108/lr.2001.50.5.256.3

Impressed, I was, by an issue of a library journal that features seven articles averaging 30 pages each! This, then, has the appearance of a heavyweight contribution from a part of the world long concerned with minorities and ethnic diversity. This “book” presents an overview of the efforts of African‐American, Asian/Pacific Islander‐American, Chinese American, Latinos, and Native Americans – how careful we have to be of our terminology – “to develop library services, identify important issues, foster leadership, and establish inclusive definitions of identity”. Without these narratives, the editor assures us, “there would be insufficient philosophical, intellectual, or emotional bases on which to develop future programs and collections”. Oh dear, I’m already feeling disputatious! More later.

The opening chapter, “We the people: one nation, a multicultural society”, examines selected economic and social indicators of US society to provide information for planning library services. These indicators include educational achievement and fluency in English, household income, living arrangements, and most importantly, poverty. Major conclusions are the need to raise literacy, improve children’s interest in reading, and co‐ordinate the activities of school and public libraries.

The second presentation “Celebrating African‐American librarians and librarianship” is a documentary review featuring the development of black librarianship, including thumbnail sketches of 39 key figures, biographical sources, an account of the Black Caucus of the American Library Association (and related black professional associations), library services to African Americans, and a literature review of such recurring themes as civil rights, race, segregation, discrimination, diversity, technology, leadership and recruitment. “Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association – a history of APALA and its founders”, the third chapter, includes profiles of the Asian/Pacific American library leaders and the accomplishments of APALA and its predecessor. The following chapter is “The history and status of Chinese Americans in librarianship”. This shows how Chinese Americans in the USA contributed to the cataloguing of East Asian and Chinese collections, and to the development of library automation, promoting multicultural library services and participation in library management and administration. Pioneers and key figures are identified, and the role of the Chinese American Library Association (CALA) is described. Further chapters feature The “Latinos” and the “Native Americans” in much the same way by outlining the history, role, and the impact of key professional associations, key players, special features and contemporary issues.

So far this work has focused on diversity, characterizing and featuring this group and that, and outlining their problems and needs. For students of, and activists for, these groups, these accounts are full and thorough. Quite frankly, though, they are pretty dull for anyone else. It takes a brief final chapter by Sandra Ríos Balderama, a librarian/storyteller of indigenous Mexican and Southwestern stories who enjoys working and speaking with young people, to bring some life to this hitherto laboured work. In her chapter “This trend called diversity”, Balderama writes: “The work of diversity in libraries begins at the crossroad where superiority, inaction, and denial become intolerable”. Subheadings lead from Professional pride, through Reciprocation not assimilation, Opening the library from within, Realize the power of story, Realize the power of interconnections, The power of communication, Realize the power of distinction, to finish at Realize the power of leadership: personal and shared. “Traveler, there is no road. You make the road by walking”. This final inspired piece is, to my mind, worth more than the 200 preceding pages. Indeed, it seems at odds with the rest of the work. Two hundred pages celebrate diversity by focusing on five ethnic groups, while Balderama wants to bring everyone together. In this I hear an echo of the confusion in UK librarianship and social policy: the “positive discrimination” of the 1980s versus the “social inclusion” of the contemporary scene. By all means celebrate and be proud of our different backgrounds, but what the majority of my multicultural users want, whatever their background, religion or affiliation, are what everyone else wants: car manuals, Which? reports, textbooks, job adverts and www.mobilephonetunes.com Different backgrounds – same needs. The confusion, I am sure these authors will say, is mine, for until we understand how the different cultures express their needs, or react to how we, the establishment, provide them, then we are in danger of excluding them.

For an account of the background of the cultures featured in a US context, this issue of Library Trends is a rich resource. It provides good background to these groups and gives informed guidance to library policy makers and managers. But, the introductory scene‐setting and the Mexican storyteller’s inspirational pieces apart, I am reminded of one of my favourite “stack sleepers”, Wallis Budge’s 1935 edition of The Contendings of the Apostles! I feel under pressure to judge which ethnic group has done the best! Rather too much self‐awareness, not enough critical analysis, and lacks a common vision.