Lifetime Achievement Award

This award is given out by the Native Writers Circle of the Americas, a native writers group.  Enjoy my book talk to learn more about the award and hear about a few books whose authors won the award.

Disclaimer: I'm not actually a librarian at Wayne State University Libraries.  I'm acting the part of a librarian giving a book talk.

Selecting and Evaluating Multicultural Resources

Thomas, E. E. (2011). Landscapes of City and Self: Place and identity in Urban Young Adult Literature. The ALAN Review, 13-22.

Thomas wrote about the different ways urban landscapes are displayed in literature.  Interestingly, urban young adult literature seems to place their characters mostly in one of two settings. Either a privileged setting or a challenged setting.

A privileged setting takes place with the characters living in an upscale neighborhood and with that also comes money.  Many aspects of the story describe the fancy lifestyle, such as upscale shops and extravagant vacations.  The challenge setting talks about characters who live in bad neighborhoods.  The lifestyle is painted with sirens and gunshots.  Quite the juxtaposition.  There are also some stories that intersect these two.

Thomas states, "These are relevant connections between literature for young adults and trends in the culture of urban centers," (2011, p. 13).  She ends her article talking about the ways she uses the literature to spark a classroom activity called a privilege walk and an assignment of a social analysis.  The quote from the article, makes me realize that if one was a youth librarian, books with an urban theme can be book for the young patrons.  Reading this kind of literature can make young adults look at their life based on what they saw in the book and start to analyze the world around them. 

As a librarian it is important to not only entertain our patrons, but also to help them learn.  Reading urban literature, will help the young adults to learn about themselves and the world around them.  Materials that carry an urban storyline then, would be an important piece to a librarian's collection.

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Perkins, M. (2009, April). Straight Talk: Challenging the Stereotypes in kids' books. School Library Journal. Retrieved September 26, 2011, from Academic OneFile. 

This article started off with the author speaking a bit about her background and her relation to race in books.  She fought between American life and her Bengali heritage home life. Books were one way for her to learn more about the "American Life".

Perkins spends the rest of the article addressing different aspects of stereotypes in kids' books. First that non-white characters in books are good, while white characters are bad.  Second, she addresses the author defining race, if they do and how they do it.  Third, Perkins talks about how the cover art can change the way the reader perceives the characters in the book.  Fourth how makes the change in the book. Lastly, beauty is defined, which still seems to be given to the white characters.  Overall, although there may be some holes in the literature, Perkins's message is that we need to be discussing the book with the teens.

When it comes to adults, including librarians, mum is the word on race.  Perkins states, "The more obvious explanation for the omission is that my teachers and librarians never thought about those kinds of messages, or felt tense and ill-quipped to talk about race.  Adult silence about an issue sends a powerful message to young people," (2009, p. 29).

With this statement in mind, it seems that not only should we have books that address different races in our library collections, but we should be also having conversations about it.  Or at the very least provide a venue for the young adults to discuss it.  Perkins talks about how the youth are much more diverse than when she was in school and for that reason it is easier to talk about race; therefore no need to fear.  Using some of the strategies from Thomas's article would help to start conversations on race.

One thing that is interesting is the contrast between this and the Blaise Cronin idea about ignoring race, brought up in Pawley's article which I wrote about last week.  Perkins goes completely opposite in saying that keeping silent is the wrong thing to do and that we need to have open discussions about race.  Which one do you think is the right way to go?

Critical Discourse on Multiculturalism and Libraries

Pawley, C. (2006, April). Unequal Legacies: Race and Multiculturalism in the LIS Curriculum. The Library Quarterly, 76(2), 149-168. Retrieved September 19, 2011, from JSTOR.

This article brought to light a few different ideas on race and multiculturalism in libraries. One idea by Lorna Peterson, stated that using the terms multiculturalism and diversity for every difference between people whether it's racial difference or not, is unfair. Not only unfair, but it is a nicer term for library professions to use that doesn't really challenge them to face the racial issues. Peterson suggests that libraries should use these terms to only speak about different races.

Another idea was by Blaise Cronin, who thought that differences in race shouldn't even been addressed. This idea I think is ridiculous. Our differences is what makes our country strong. We can have all these differences and still work together. For the diversity that we have now, even if it is small, it makes the library profession stronger as well. Why would we ignore this strength? And how can we use this to the full extent if we don't recognize it?

The author states, "I contend that substituting multiculturalism and diversity for race allows the library community to evade confronting racism as - still - a defining dimension of American society and, in this way, helps perpetuate it" (Pawley, 2006, p. 153). I agree with this to an extent, but as I'm white my fear in talking about race is that I will offend someone of a different race.

I think that Pawley has a point, to really face racial issues and embrace different races in the profession, we have to be able to freely talk about it. This will take some teaching to both whites and non-whites. I say non-whites, because they need to know that freely talking about race will happen and they can't be offended by it. This will help whites to know that it is safe to talk. On the flip side, whites also need to be aware that non-whites will be freely talking and they can't get offended either. Pawley's article is a great starting point to start the conversations needed to make changes.

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Lewis, A. E. (2004, December). "What Group?" Studying Whites and Whiteness in the Era of "Color-Blindness". Sociological Theory, 22(4), 623-646. Retrieved September 19, 2011, from JSTOR.

This was an interesting article, which starts out with a claim that when thinking about race, people need to consider white as a group. I don't know how many conversations I've had about race, but I don't think white ever comes up as group. For example when I signed up for this class about multicultural services, I am not thinking about services to white patrons. Somewhere along the lines race became a term that describe minorities. To fully discuss race, whites need to included as a group. Which has got me thinking how would this mindset change how libraries serve patrons? How could this change their groupings in their collection?

There was one part of this article that really caught my attention. The author says, "Although numerous all-white groups are not explicitly racial, their racial composition is not an accident but it is a result of white' status as members of a passive social collectivity whose lives are shaped at least in part by the racialized social system in which they live and operate", (Lewis, 2004, p. 627). The author then goes on to state "the racial composition of all white settings...can be an outcome of long histories of racial exclusion, even if those discriminatory policies are not pursued activity or aggressively today". (Lewis, 2004, p. 627).

In the previous post I reflect on an article titled, Diversity, Inclusion, and Underrepresented Populations in LIS Research, in which the author states that the LIS profession is not diverse. The above statement made me think of that. Perhaps the reason why the profession is not diverse is because of the long history of the library profession? Although some professions may have merged into non-white dominated since the Civil Rights movement, perhaps this is one area libraries are lagging behind?

The question in my mind then becomes, why is that? As the statement said, it can still be white dominated, even if the discriminatory policies are not in effect. I think the LIS profession as a whole is not discriminatory against other races joining. However I do have some first hand experience that the south is still not over the past and so I could see different races not going down this path simply because that is not the way things are done. I think some further research is needed (if it has not already been done) to figure out why non-white races do not going into the profession and what they view libraries as. This would help those already in the profession to figure out how to draw in more diversity.

Mainstream Discourse on Multiculturalism and Libraries

Jaeger, P. T., Bertot, J. C., & Franklin, R. E. (2010, April). Diversity, Inclusion, and Underrepresented Populations in LIS Research. The Library Quarterly, 80(2), 175-181. Retrieved September 9, 2011, from Chicago Journals.

I have heard that libraries need to work on their diversity. Each time I heard that I thought of the different collections and programming my local libraries due on diversity and to reach diverse populations. I would think what do they mean libraries are not diverse? This article made me understand. "The professional commitment to serving diverse patron communities, however, has never translated into librarianship becoming a truly diverse profession" (Jaeger, 2010, p. 175).

Although we do serve other populations, with different collections and programming, the profession itself is not diverse. The people who work: the librarians, administration, and staff are not diverse. This is something that I can see if I look around me. I have worked, volunteered or interned at three different libraries. Between the three of them, I can say it is primarily dominated by Caucasian females. Interesting since the profession started out with Caucasian males dominating, but I digress.

This article argues that this needs to change in order to better serve the population and states ways that this can be changed. Jaeger, et al can be changed by completing more research in diversity in library profession. The article said that the people who work in the profession influence the people who will go into that field, because they will look for people who they can identify with. Libraries are lacking in this area, since it is dominated by Caucasian people, probably mostly females. Honestly, this articles made me feel bad for being a white female...like I have nothing to bring to the profession, at least in this regard. At least I could conduct research in diverse subjects to help diversify the profession in that way and start to see how I can make changes in the profession.

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Abdullahi, I. (2007). Diversity and Intercultural issues in library and information science (LIS) education. New Library World, 108(9/10), 453-459. Retrieved September 9, 2011.

This article to speaks about the education in library and information science. The author argues that because the world is becoming more diverse, the library education needs to also become more diverse. The author purposes four ways that teachers in the information profession can do this:

1. the teacher is socioculturally conscious

2. has affirming views of students from diverse backgrounds

3. sees themselves as responsible for and capable of bringing about educational change

4. uses their knowledge about the students to build on what the student already knows. (Abdullahi, 2007)

The biggest thing that stuck out to me in this article was this, "Therefore, to gain sociocultural consciousness, aspiring future information professionals must not only understand their own sociocultural identities but also come to recognize the intricate connection between libraries and society. They must come to see that, as traditionally organized institutions, libraries help to reproduce existing social inequalities while giving the illusion that such inequalities are natural and fair" (Abdullahi, 2007, p. 455).

This statement is a wake up call. Abdullahi is looking at libraries and shaking them with this statement, because I think libraries naturally reflect the social structure around them. By naturally, I mena they do this without thinking. Perhaps most businesses do this as well, but libraries are called to a higher calling than the average business. Libraries are supposed to level the playing field by offering free resources, unbiasedly, to all people, however Abdullahi is saying that libraries are not doing this.

What makes this statement hard to act on, is that information professionals are just following what society has trained them to do since they were young. Most library professionals probably think that they are not excluding anyone, so how can the libraries fix what they don't realize is broken? I look at myself and try to see where in libraries I could start to make a difference, but it is hard to where the libraries are lacking and to see what could be done differently.

I think starting to change things can start with what the Abdullahi article talked about - education. If library professionals are trained throughout their education to look at society to see what changes can be made, this change might be easier. Easier to spot, at least, probably not easy to change, but these new professions could start to advocate for change. Research, as the Jaeger, et al article states, will also help the change. Look at Abdullahi's article; without that, I may never have started the process of questioning the libraries' processes and looking for ways I can change it. By publishing that article more librarians are looking at their library world and what they can do to become more diverse, with the workers, with their services and with the people they mentor. Once the information profession starts to do this, following what society does without thinking may be replaced by analyzing the information profession.

Cultural Mosiac

Culture Mosaic is a way to describe the different aspects that make up diversity in a society. Everyone has different parts of their lives that come to define who they are and also how society sees them. These different parts are called tiles, which make up a person just as tiles make up a mosaic. Chao and Moon state that the titles can fit into three main categories: demographic, geographic and associative features (Chao 2005). As I examine myself, I can see different tiles that make up my cultural mosaic and how they fall into those three categories.

According to Chao and Moon, demographic tiles, are “physical in nature or inherited from one’s parents and ancestries.” (2005, p. 1129) For me the most obvious in this category is my gender. I’m a female. My race is also pretty obvious as my skin color and lack of accent gives away that I’m a white American. My ethnicity though is something that can’t be told from my outward appearance. My ethnicity is a grab bag of things, including Dutch, German, Irish and Native American. This is what we know so far. I’m currently researching family history so I may find out more whirl doing that. I’m also 25 years old. I think for my appearance one might guess that I’m in my 20s.

The second category for titles to be filed under is geographic. Geographic refers to “physical features of a region, whether they are natural or human-made” (Chao 2005, p. 1130). For myself, I live in a cold climate; Grand Rapids, MI. Although we do have some summer and some very hot days, it seems to be more often cold than hot. The cold temperature puts in me a minority group of people who loved 85+ degree days with high humidity, because it beats the hypothermia-inducing cold of Michigan. We are surrounded by The Great Lakes. These lakes and smaller inland lakes are easily found within a short distance of almost anywhere in Michigan. This makes me a swimmer and not afraid of water. As mentioned previously, I live in Grand Rapids, MI. I have never lived outside of it. Grand Rapids is a big-small town. By big-small town I mean that its small enough that residents know a good amount of people here, but big enough that it has a slight big-city feel to it. It is also a very diverse city, which gives me the opportunity to interact with many people who have different cultural mosaics than my own. This is something I have been doing ever since elementary school.

The last category is associative. This category is made up of “all groups with whom an individual choose to identify” (Chao 2005, p. 1131). For me this means big family, still married parents, Christian Reformed, Army sister, Library staff member, ALA member, MLA member, GVSU alumni, GVSU Libraries staff member.

Using associative, geographic and demographic as categories to help sort through one’s personal titles can help to sort out who one is. When discussing culture and diversity it is important to take a broader approach. Rather than looking at one aspect of a person, such as race, it’s important to look at everything that makes up a person. Using the cultural mosaic that Chao and Moon developed helps to look at each person as a whole.

Source:

Chao, G. T., & Moon, H. (2005). The Cultural Mosiac: A Metatheory for Understanding the Complexity of Culture. Journal of Applied Psychology, 90(6), 1128-1140.