The Bookmark: National Multicultural Institute

The National Multicultural Institute is an organization that is dedicated to strengthening and empowering organizations and businesses by helping them to diversify.  They do this by assisting their clients in creating goals and then meeting those goals using what they call a Diversity Action Plan.  This organization work closely with specific companies and organizations, but they also hold workshops that anybody can attend.  Their next conference is called the Navigating Differences in a Changing World: Dialogues on Diversity, Culture and Identity.  Finally, this organization also organizes workshops that are relatively inexpensive that can address specific issues.  The upcoming workshop is about Human Trafficking.  In short, this organization is very involved in increasing awareness about issues concerning diversity in the workplace.

"Diversity, inclusion, and underrepresented populations in LIS research"

“Librarianship is a profession that has embraced the inclusive creed of helping all those who enter the library and of providing materials that reflect the diverse range of perspectives and groups in society.” (175)

“Many library services are designed to reach specific underrepresented populations.” (175)

“The professional commitment to serving diverse patron communities, however, has never translated into librarianship truly becoming a diverse profession.” (175)

The previous three statements are all true statements that apply to the library and information science profession.  In their article entitled “Diversity, Inclusion and Underrepresented Populations in LIS Research,” Jaeger, Bertot and Franklin discuss the need to diversify the library profession, from LIS students to librarians and library administrators.  While it is well documented that the profession is not ethnically diverse (particularly amongst African Americans and Latinos), there isn’t any meaningful research about the representation of other groups of people such as people with disabilities or people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning (GLBTQ).  Furthermore, while there have been some attempts to ethnically diversify librarianship through recruitment into a master’s program, no attempts have been made to attract members of other groups of people such as those already mentioned.

While perhaps it doesn’t seem that important, in reality there are far-reaching implications for this lack of diversity.  It’s extremely important the librarians in a community are as diverse as the community itself.  Not only is this important because it could make the patrons of that community more comfortable, which would raise the effectiveness of the library, but it could also encourage and inspire members of minority groups to become librarians themselves. 

The research opportunities associated with diversity in librarianship are endless.  Research can be done on any population group and on any aspect within that population group; the library and information science profession is inclusive in this respect.  Jaeger, Bertot and Franklin discuss several different research opportunities.  One example they discussed is to examine a population in conjunction with a LIS issue.  An example of this sort of research could include an examination of better ways to accommodate library professionals with disabilities while they are at their place of work.  Another research opportunity the authors discussed was framing issues of diversity in larger topics.  An example of this could be comparing the services offered at a library (such as databases, computer classes, Internet access) and geographic location of the library to see if there are any correlations.  In short, there is a plethora of research opportunities; the issue is that LIS scholars generally aren’t utilizing these opportunities.

The final issue that the authors discuss is diversity education in LIS programs.  There are guidelines for accreditation from the American Library Association (ALA) that say that diversity issues need to be covered in a LIS program but these guidelines don’t really specify how much students need to study diversity issues.  As a result, only a few LIS programs really focus on diversity issues.  The three programs explicitly mentioned are the University of California, Los Angeles and the University of Maryland.  As a side note, I’d be interested in knowing how Wayne State University would rank in this respect as that’s the school I go to.  But the authors stress that if there is more education about diversity issues in an LIS program, graduates will be better equipped to serve their patrons and, in general, be more culturally aware.

While the librarian profession is striving to serve their multicultural and diverse communities to the best of their ability, it does not seem to be striving to diversify the profession itself.  But diversifying the library and information science profession can only be good.  If librarians themselves were to be a more diverse group, they would be better able to serve their communities effectively and they would better be able to remain a more diverse group of individuals.

Sources:

Jaeger, P. T., Bertot, J. C., & Franklin, R. E. (2010). Diversity, inclusion, and underrepresented populations in LIS research. Library Quarterly, 80, 175-181. 

The Bookmark: Countries and their Cultures

The website Countries and their Cultures is a dictionary of multicultural groups and definitions.  It gives definitions for virtually every multicultural group in the United States from Acadians to Maltese Americans to Yupiat and Yemeni Americans and gives a brief description of what part of the world each group of Americans is from.  Additionally, users can find cultural information for many of the population groups around the world.  It is a great resource if an individual wants to know more basic information about the culture of any group in the world for whatever reason that person may have.  Finally, it’s a great resource for individuals moving to a new town and to educate librarians on the culture of multicultural people who live in their community. 

My Cultural Mosaic

In their article “The Cultural Mosaic: A Metatheory for Understanding the Complexity of Culture,” Chao and Moon suggest that it is helpful to look at culture as a mosaic or as a picture that is made up of distinct pictures or pieces.  To me this makes sense because while an individual’s skin color and gender both have an effect on who that person is and what kind of decisions they make, those two characteristics have no real effect on each other.  So the different tiles that I would use to describe my cultural mosaic include: female, white, middle-class and learner.

When I was younger, I really hated my name.  I knew more men who were named “Dana” than women, and I felt that I should have a more feminine name.  I have since come to like my name, but it was a sore spot for awhile there.  Anyway, my dad told me that he chose my name because it was ambiguous and so that when I filled out a job-application any future employers wouldn’t automatically be able to decide if I were male or female.  I think that this is when I first realized that gender inequality was and occasionally continues to be an issue.  While I don’t feel that my gender is something that I’ve been discriminated against a lot, I do have an interest in seeing more cracks and breakage in that glass ceiling that we have and I do tend to pay attention to how things have and will affect women. 

While I have fair skin, I don’t really think about it much other than to remember to have sun block in the summer because I burn very easily.  My white skin comes from my Euro-mutt background of Polish, French and German ancestry.  My maternal grandmother is full Polish and grew up in Polish community outside of Detroit and we still identify ourselves as of Polish descent.  My paternal grandfather’s sister researched and created our family tree and discovered that we had German and French in our ancestry, though I don’t think any of the cultural influences of either country have really continued in my family.  I mentioned already that I don’t think much of my own skin color, but that doesn’t mean that it hasn’t profoundly affected my life in ways that I’m not even aware of. 

I come from a very middle-class, pro-union background.  My dad started at General Motors right out of high school and worked for 27 years before he retired.  He was also a member of the UAW.  My uncle also was a UAW member and worked for General Motors before retiring, though he didn’t get the benefit of early retirement like my dad did.  My paternal grandfather moved his family from Kentucky to Detroit for the auto industry because that was where the jobs were.  In short, when “take your child to work day” came around, I went to the factory my dad worked at and he gave me a tour and told me that his job was to attach the door to the car or whatever it was he did at the time.  If it wasn’t for my dad’s job at GM and the UAW benefits he had, I wouldn’t have had the amazing health care that I grew up with and I wouldn’t have had many of the things that I had growing up.  So when the auto industry started failing, which was right at the end of my dad’s career, and people started to really bash the union and GM, I was really torn.  I could see that perhaps the union had gone too far, but I wasn’t willing to say that unions are horrible and should be dismantled completely.  Furthermore, I am a member of a union now, though it’s not as effective as the UAW.  I also could see that perhaps American auto companies had made some bad decisions, but I still won’t buy a foreign car.

Finally, I am a learner and I place a very high value on education.  I talked about how my dad worked on the line at GM for 27 years.  But in addition to building cars and helping raise my sister and me, he also went from having no degree to having a MBA.  When I was growing up, I knew that there were options other than college for other people, but I never felt that anything but college was an option for me.  I dual-enrolled during high school at LCC and went to CMU the fall after I graduated high school.  Even though I have a BS right now, I still find myself working at a retail store.  The thing that consoles me about that is that I am working towards another degree; one that I hope will be more useful than my BS in Political Science and Sociology.  One thing that I can’t understand, though, is how people can work in this retail store for ten, fifteen, twenty years.  I have a difficult time picturing myself being content there, but the people that I’m referring to seem to be.  It’s something that I have to be careful of, remember that not everybody has the same expectations for themselves that I do and not everybody has the same strengths that I do.

There are certainly many more tiles that I can fill in on my cultural mosaic, but that covers the basics.  I am also a liberal, which is partially influenced by my family’s history in the auto industry and as union members.  Interestingly, my family is mostly conservative.  I’m also non-religious.  When I was growing up, my maternal great-grandmother always said that even the worst Catholics didn’t eat meat on Good Friday, and that was about as much as my family did religiously.  I still don’t eat meat on Good Friday, but that’s more a tribute to my great-grandmother rather than any religious reasons.  I am also a member of generation y and I am very comfortable with technology and with instant communication.  As I grow older and learn more, my cultural mosaic will shift and change, but this is what it is right now.

Sources:

Chao, G. & Moon, H. (2005). The cultural mosaic: A metatheory for understanding the complexity of culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90 (6), 1128-1140.

Hello!

I think the last time I had a blog was when I had a livejournal.  I was about 16 and thought that everybody would want to read about my deep and philosophical thoughts.  I still don't know how many people, if any, ever read it. 

Anyway, this is my first blog post since then, not counting the occasional status update on facebook.  Maybe this time my deep and philosophical thoughts will be more thought out and well developed.  One can only hope. :)

This blog is for my LIS 7370 class, which is about multicultural information services.  During my undergrad I was a sociology major, so I have a feeling that this class will bring back fond memories of the classes I took back then and the different concepts that I learned.  If not, then I'm still looking forward to learning all that can be learned.  Good luck to everybody!