Let's begin our new topic entitled "Attracting Minority Students." Kathleen Koontz is our guest editor. She holds an undergraduate degree in French from Centre College. After doing some graduate work in French literature and studying for a semester at Universite de Caen, Kathleen decided that French was not to be her career. In May 1996, she received a master's degree in library and information science from University of Kentucky's School of Library and Information Science. Currently, she works as a cataloger at Book Wholesalers and serves on the Affirmative Action/Public Relations Committee of the Kentucky Chapter of Special Libraries Association. In early January, she moved to Danville, Illinois, where she is the library technical systems coordinator for United Samaritans Medical Center. Despite being busy moving and taking on a new job, Kathleen will serve as our guest editor for the next two weeks.
Please join us for a discussion on "Attracting Minority Students."
Perhaps part of the difficulty experienced by these committees may stem from their composition. The original Affirmative Action Committee of the Kentucky Chapter consisted entirely of white middle-aged women. Currently, the committee consists of seven white women, three white men, and one man of Spanish or Hispanics descent. In the past, the committee has promoted library science as a career by participating at career days at high schools with large minority enrollments. This program has been dropped because the students were most interested in extras (free pencils, flashy displays, etc.) and schools now charge groups to participate. Hence, the committee has decided to restudy the target groups and the methods of public relations.
If the profession is to reflect the diversity of modern culture it needs to attract minority students. In order to get the discussion of attracting minority students to library science started, I have developed a list of questions. Feel free not to limit your responses and comments to these questions.
"Librarians serve a clientele which is diverse both in information needs and in ethnic background. However, librarians as a professional group are very homogeneous. The typical librarian is a white middle class well-educated woman with an undergraduate degree in the humanities."
As long as we demand the MLS or MLIS degree of all professional librarians, such librarians will continue to be homogeneous in the sense of being well-educated. The very fact that Koontz's archetypical librarian has a master's degree in librarianship makes this librarian well-educated.
"In order to develop ways to make the profession more representative of society at large, Special Libraries Association has requested that each chapter form an Affirmative Action Committee. These committees are to develop programs and materials which will attract minorities and encourage them to pursue a career in library science."
This opens up a larger question, which Koontz never addresses: To what extent should people be colour blind, and to what extent colour conscious? Tied to this question is the matter of whether it is, in fact, demeaning to judge people, as far as their potential to contribute to the profession is concerned, on the basis of their respective skin colours or cultural backgrounds.
"Perhaps part of the difficulty experienced by these committees may stem from their composition. The original Affirmative Action Committee of the Kentucky Chapter consisted entirely of white middle-aged women."
Koontz suggests that persons from a certain group or certain groups are incapable of understanding the minds and goals of those outside of their group or groups. Would Koontz suggest, for example, that white writers should not try to write from the perspective of black characters? For that matter, does Koontz believe that a white, middle-aged female librarian could not comprehend the needs of a black, young, male library user?
"2. Beyond offering minority scholarships, what can professional organizations (both on the national and local levels) do to attract minorities?"
Could minority scholarships not be seen as condescending towards the specific groups they target? What about the member of a minority group that wishes to be judged as an individual, rather than as a representative of a specific group?
A few other questions have occurred to me. As cultural groups increasingly intermarry, children will be born who are not easily classified as belonging to a specific racial or cultural group. Consider, as an example, this passage:
Dinesh D'Souza
The End of Racism (1995)
Another question comes to mind: Koontz would like library school graduates to reflect, in their composition, the composition of society. Given the fact that only a minority of library school graduates are men, and given the fact that males constitute approximately half of society, would it be desirable for library schools to recruit potential male librarians aggressively? Should 50% of available positions within a library school master's programme be reserved for male applicants?
Looking forward to your responses
"The typical librarian is a white middle class well-educated woman with an undergraduate degree in the humanities."
My UG degree may not be in the humanities, but I've certainly been subjected to a kind of reverse discrimination. I sometimes joke that I had to go and pick a profession where being a highly intelligent white woman with drive and determination is not to my advantage. Ironically, I have been interested in attracting minorities to librarianship long before I even finished my MLS. Unfortunately, it's hard to tell others what a great profession it is when you don't have a job. But that's another topic...
I don't think we need to apologize for the current composition of our profession, nor do I think we want our efforts at diversification to be viewed in that light. Since I assume we don't want to be accused of tokenism, we need to define the need for diversification beyond the composition of our profession or the composition of our clientele. No profession should be required to reflect even approximate proportions of gender or race or any other characteristic in the "larger society." To begin down this path strikes me as overly deterministic. If I want to be a librarian, but all of the white women slots are filled, then what do I do? [side note: work on a Ph.D. :)]
"Special Libraries Association has requested that each chapter form an Affirmative Action Committee. These committees are to develop programs and materials which will attract minorities and encourage them to pursue a career in library science."
While I agree with the idea of devoting time and resources to the issue of diversification, I think we should shy away from short-term solutions with difficult-to-measure outcomes. Brochures are all well and good, but attitude change needs a human element. The best advertisements for librarianship are the people who live it every day.
The first step is to reach out to your local groups and let others know why you made that career choice. NOT because you love books, and NOT because you thought it would be easy or quiet, but because (and I can only speak for myself) library science offered the best of everything I wanted: to be in touch with people, to help them satisfy specific learning needs, to work in a highly intellectual setting, to be in contact with all kinds of information, to be able to dip my little toe in all the topic areas which interest me most, to have the possibility of conducting my own research, and to keep learning for the rest of my life. Phrased this way, I think that it would be flattering [regardless of color] to have someone say "Hey, I think you could do what I do." It sure felt that way to me.
"Beyond offering minority scholarships, what can professional organizations (both on the national and local levels) do to attract minorities?"
Participate in university career fairs and offer yourself as a contact person to career counselors. My opinion is that high school is too early to do much effective recruiting. If the MLS continues to be the terminal degree, then we need to target undergraduates. Student workers in academic libraries are a possible target group. So are volunteers who work with Americorps or similar programs. Unfortunately, they already have a stereotype of "librarian" stamped on their brains from the media and from their own experiences. People of any race from lower socio-economic backgrounds are less likely to have had much contact with a "professional" librarian. Maybe we need to reach out and touch a few more people. Professional organizations can help with suggestions for recruitment, but it's individuals who have to beat the pavement. One thing organizations CAN do is support librarian recruitment efforts as professional development activities. We're obviously not in it for the money, but recognition by our peers and our employers can act as a reward for our efforts.
Even the title of this discussion topic, "Attracting Minority Students," brings with it all of the baggage these terms imply. We need to diversify the profession for various reasons, but not to fill a slot labeled "purple librarian."
It is one thing to "encourage" minority students to consider a career in librarianship, but quite another to at least imply that there is something wrong with the current cultural makeup. The idea that, if a group does not represent the ethnic/cultural makeup of our society down to the last percentage point, there is something broken in the group which needs "fixing," seems rather off-base to me. We can encourage minorities to consider librarianship, but we cannot coerce them into it.
Certainly, we should not consider lowering professional standards. Those who are interested in the profession should be willing to take the necessary steps to join it, just as we all did. Affirmative action should not degenerate into a quota system. Strictly my own opinions, of course.
We may have a love of what we do but it's difficult to sell love of profession. Equitable compensation and availability of MLS-accredited programs will attract individuals of diverse backgrounds. Dwindling accredited programs and poor salaries will send them to other professions.
Off the soapbox
I agree with him that colour should not make the difference but unfortunately in larger society it appears to make a difference.
I am glad that he reminded us that on an individual basis some positive societal and related structural changes are resulting from natural selection. But, in the larger group context, colour (if not known race or ethnic identification) appears to still be a confounding variable in too many decision-making and related situations.
In reality, the human race has never been neutral or objective in group behavior; so we will have to deal with the issues presented by both Koontz and Holmes.
Information service providers are enabled to provide a richer service to an increasingly multi-ethnic/multichallenged (new word) and informed clientele if the staff is diverse in interest, capability, gender, culture -- and so on. Now this is fact. The claim is not that one group of persons cannot provide service to another. That's been done for generations. What the information sector is waking up to, is that we can do better. We might think of computer technology. One cannot squeeze out any more from an application than has been programmed in -- generally. In any realm, one can deliver more, if they start out with more. It really puzzles me that INFORMATION professionals are stumbling over this simple reality. This whining against diversity does not befit the lofty goals of the profession.
Regarding solutions, we might:
I have been a library assistant for 5.5 years and have seen a lot of changes. The reasons I chose to continue my education were much the same as Ms. Swain's. I enjoy meeting and working with people and helping them find the information they are looking for. I also enjoy keeping up with and learning new technology. (Along with the fact that I like books.)
I have never been comfortable with the idea of affirmative action. I believe in theory it is a good thing, but the realities are quite different. I still believe we should judge people on their personal and professional merits rather than their ethnicity.
How to attract minority students besides offering scholarships? Again, get out and talk to them about the changes in the profession. Emphasize how their individual qualities can enhance librarianship.
I was, first and foremost, attracted to this profession because I enjoyed reference and research work. I was also stimulated by the environment of a library.
I had tremendous support from many academic librarians during my undergraduate college years. Many of these librarians stated that I had two advantages going for me, I was a minority and a male. This became apparent when I think back on my application to library school at U.C. Berkeley.
First, my GPA was woeful at 2.75 for graduate school and for Berkeley no doubt. Second, the library school granted me an extension to get my transcripts in order. And finally, an administrative aide confided to me that the school wanted me in the program so much so that I was granted this allowance.
I can only assume that I may have been placed ahead of many highly qualified white females who may have applied. I cannot confirm this, but it has weighed on my conscience throughout my career. It has given me an attitude that I must do better just to be good enough. In many respects it has made me a better librarian.
Not to meander on the focus of this topic, I can't offer any viable suggestions to attract minorities to our profession. I don't think most minorities base their career choices on race, but on their interests and aptitude. I didn't choose this career because the profession "needed me." I chose it because I felt I could excel at being a reference librarian. I'm still pursuing this objective.
First, I think her assertion that it being necessary to lower professional standards to accommodate more minorities represents "racist assumptions" isn't necessarily true, and hopefully won't have a chilling effect on others who disagree with her.
The available pool of minorities is limited -- fewer minorities are successful in college compared to other groups for reasons having nothing to do with intelligence, and many of the best and brightest go elsewhere, e.g., law, medicine, business, education. If you are making decisions about admission to the profession (or hiring, or promotion) based on race or ethnicity, it stands to reason that, since you will have fewer candidates that meet the "standards," you will have to reach your goal of more minority representation by lowering (or changing, as the dean suggests) the standards, if your goals dictate. In other words, if representation is the driving force behind recruitment and admission, something is going to have to give at the point that your desired minority representation numbers outstrip your candidates who meet your current standards. This isn't racist; this is logic.
I'm not sure, as the dean suggests, that changing the methods of determining intelligence because it shows some people to be less intelligent on these tests is the answer: Is this not a lowering of standards? Rather, increasing the quality of education given minority students in elementary and secondary schools seems a better plan in the long run. So is providing support and help to minority undergrads who often lack the tools needed for studying at a college level. So is fighting with every fiber of all our beings the prevailing notion among some minority kids that doing well in school is a 'white thing' and thus to be disdained. So is trying to attract better minority students to librarianship. And more....
We may have to lower standards to gain greater minority representation; it depends on the minority representation goals. Only time, while simultaneously improving our educational system (and attitudes), will increase the number of qualified minorities who meet the appropriately high standards set by the profession.
At Tulane Medical Library, we have had a number of excellent paraprofessionals over the years who went back to school and became professional librarians. Only one of them was a minority. I have always assumed that the reason for this was that the financial return on the investment in a library degree simply wasn't worth the effort to minority students who could make substantially more money with other advanced degrees than with an MLS. That may be changing with the different kinds of jobs that MLS grads are now filling as webmasters and information brokers in a wide range of new settings.
I agree with those who have voiced their opposition to affirmative action as any kind of solution to the small number of minorities in the library field. The biggest problem we have attracting anyone to the profession is the low salaries. Schools of medicine and law have seen their student populations transformed from almost totally male to one-third to one-half female in a few short decades -- because graduates make good money. The reverse has been true in education which has traditionally been heavily female and the salaries low. When librarians make good money, we won't have any trouble attracting anyone we want.
On another topic: I have to respond to Shirley Richardson's comment: "Certainly, we should not consider lowering professional standards. Those who are interested in the profession should be willing to take the necessary steps to join it, just as we all did."
Interesting assumption, the way to attract "minorities" is to lower the standards. In my opinion, if we want a diverse profession the way to go about it would be to raise standards, not lower them. The accreditation standards should be higher; the admissions standards should be higher; the number of graduates should be lower; starting salaries should be higher.
Have you been following the news about the crisis in medical education? Too many doctors out there, so they're going to Congress asking them to subsidize the schools to not fill their slots, similar to farm subsidies for not growing anything. Why are they so upset? Because too many doctors means lower salaries. Maybe we could get in on that action.
We kill ourselves as a profession by turning out more grads every year than there could ever be jobs for. If tougher standards mean some schools go under -- I say "hooray." That would just mean fewer slots and more intense competition for them from people who want to get into the profession. Library schools should be picking from among the brightest and best, not settling for people who couldn't figure out what else to do with themselves, as I fear is sometimes the case.
If we want to attract bright people, of any stripe, we need to change the image of the profession. As long as we are unwilling to submit to meaningful accreditation or to any type of board certification, nothing will change. How can we insist on even being looked at as a "profession" without a certification process? It's absurd.
One final point: Librarianship is seriously misunderstood. We all know that. We all fight the image of the uptight old lady who keeps track of due dates. Why aren't professional associations addressing this problem? I can envision a public ad campaign (with time donated by the Ad Council; they do it all the time) of bright, professional librarians talking for 25 seconds or so about what they do, (people who fly right in the face of the stereotype) with a clever tag line about asking a librarian. Why aren't we thinking on this scale?
Soapbox off; back to work
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I don't think people are "whining" or "uptight" about this issue. Nor do I think they are aware of the racist tones of their positions. I think they are legitimately concerned about policies and procedures such as affirmative action, although responses do tend to be reactionary. Part of the reason this issue becomes so emotional is that mainstream U.S. culture centers around the myth that rewards and punishments are based on merit. We are neither objective nor neutral, as Ben Speller points out. The best "human" for the job doesn't always come out on top, nor does virtue preclude success.
It is this myth of merit that allows people to hang on to their racist views, by confirming their own place as gained through hard work and high ability, while looking down at those in seemingly lower positions as less worthy...hence the battle cry, "We Won't Lower Standards." The problem with debunking this myth is that it is very much tied up in how we as individuals feel about ourselves, our self worth. If something other than merit is functioning, what could it be? Does this mean that we are not as smart, or as competent, as we think we are? For a profession such as librarianship, separating career position from cognitive abilities might prove very hard indeed.
One of my earlier points was that diversity for diversity's sake is not a legitimate goal. Multicultural education researchers are finding this out in K-12 settings, where additive solutions such as "extra" information on other cultures is seen as irrelevant. Even little kids say that if it's not in the book, then it's not important.
Without getting into the overly commercialized responses of the publishing industry to this predicament, let me just say that I don't want to see librarianship marginalize diversity by adding a little here and adding a little there. This is a complicated problem, with even more complicated solutions. Opening up a dialogue, such as this one we are participating in, is a necessary first step.
I think we can all agree that the status levels and salaries of librarianship leave something to be desired. But I will not accept that somehow library science would rank up there with doctor and lawyer if only we got bigger paychecks. Do you see how this is tied up in our myths of merit as well? Our problems will not be magically solved by dropping the word "library" from our professional lives, and I don't think it's particularly helpful to mention salary and terminology in response to every stumbling block.
It is true that many high ability minorities at some level are aware of their "value" in the market, and subsequently do not select lower paying professions such as teaching or librarianship. But they look for other attributes besides big bucks. Like a collegial atmosphere, where race or disability or gender are accepted, and not isolated or highlighted. I don't think our profession is out of the running, but we are a little behind in the polls.
If one thing is clear from all this, let it be that we need to talk more about this, and to continue to talk about it long after this thread expires. I hope this second response gets posted, because I want others to think about how the quick glimpse we get of other librarians through a forum such as this one, leads us form opinions about people that may or may not be accurate. It is only through extended conversation that we begin to know each other, and to let others know us. But maybe we also need to talk to people who are different than us, people outside of our circles. I think the potential contributions to library science from people of diversity far outweigh the rewards that librarianship can give in return. What we can do is let who we are and what we do be known to people of all shapes and sizes, and hold out a hand to those who want to join us.
To the general public, we have not yet overcome the image of the librarian as probably female, probably middle aged, somewhat passive, and almost always bookish. Tell someone you're a librarian, and how many times do you hear "Wow, that's really exciting...I've always loved to work with computers and technology!" I usually get "Oh how wonderful, I've always loved books...or to read...or some such."
Our profession has been unsuccessful at making this a financially rewarding career (although we're doing somewhat better, and some few librarians do quite well). Convincing someone in high school that librarianship is the career for them... you can spend an extra year or two in school getting a graduate degree (for which you will probably need to relocate unless you're in one of the few places within commuting distance of an existing school) and then you can compete for an entry salary in the mid-20's in an organization which doesn't have a lot of room to progress...isn't easy. There are too many higher paying careers which require less education and which are working hard to attract minorities.
I'm not sure that scholarship programs will attract more minorities into our ranks. The past ones didn't do anything appreciable. Many library schools couldn't use the funds they had, and it isn't at all clear that the minorities who used these programs wouldn't have gone to library school anyway. The initiative that ALA is talking about now will be a high dollar, low impact one if it goes through.
I think we need to spend our bucks on reaching people who are making career choices (and nowadays that starts in high school or before). We need to let them know what a terrific profession this is (and if we can make it more lucrative fine), not because you'll get rich, but because you'll have an opportunity to make the world a better place, to help your community have access to a world of information, because you'll be the most technically competent person on your block, or for a host of other good reasons.
We need to know what motivates anyone, but minorities specifically, to make a career choice and then direct our efforts toward those motivations in ways that will allow our target audience to hear us.
Unlike some other posters, I think bringing in minorities to our ranks is critical to our future. Our society is strong because of its diversity. Our profession needs to be just as strong.
I must admit being surprised how many people focused on the adjective "well-educated" in the description of the typical librarian ("The typical librarian is a white, middle-class, well-educated woman with an undergraduate degree in the humanities.") This description was drawn from readings and class discussions concerning the makeup of our profession and was never meant to be anything other than a statistical statement. The fact that several people seemed to assume I was suggesting library schools should lower academic standards puzzles me even more. At no point in the introduction did I mention or imply academic standards should be lowered. While some posters think lowering academic standards would enable more minority students to enter library science programs, I think lowered academic standards would have an overall negative effect on the profession.
I would also like to clarify a statement concerning the composition of the SLA affirmative action committees. Boyd Holmes seemed very upset when I wrote, "Perhaps part of the difficulty experienced by these committees may stem from their composition. The original Affirmative Action Committee of the Kentucky Chapter consisted entirely of white middle-aged women." He took this comment to mean "persons from a certain group or certain groups are incapable of understanding the minds and goals of those outside their group or groups." What I wished to express was a concern raised by two of the original committee members -- how can a group of white middle-aged, middle-class professional women (most of whom do not have school-aged children) create programs and materials to attract minorities to the profession when they have little or no contact with the minority groups they are attempting to target? No one said she was incapable of understanding members of the target groups. Instead the concern was a lack of contact with members of the target groups and a need for further insight into what factors influenced their career choices.
Personally, I do not think minority students should be recruited to fill quotas and to serve as tokens. However, I do think our profession would benefit from being more diverse. Like Tom Wilding, I believe diversity makes for a strong society and a strong profession. During the coming week, I would like to turn our discussion to Tom Wilding's comments:
"Unlike some other posters, I think bringing in minorities to our ranks is critical to our future. Our society is strong because of its diversity. Our profession needs to be just as strong."
Someone mentioned other professions that have been successful in attracting minority students. Does anyone know specific programs or materials those professions used? Could they be adapted to our profession?
What about our graduate programs? What programs are they using or did they use in the past to attract minorities? Where these programs successful? What steps are they taking to attract bright students to the field regardless of race, gender, or disability?
Looking forward to your insights.
We also need to face the reality that community and individual networking and lots of everyday economic and social situations are at work in this discussion. Regardless of ethnic group, qualifications or meeting standards, there are certain work categories that appear to be reserved for certain groups, in this case the dominant population. When you add the low average financial compensation to this situation, attracting traditionally defined minority students to library education is made more difficult. The teaching profession appears to have the same problem.
I recently participated in a leadership institute as a mentor. I was asked to tell how I entered the profession and arrived in my current position. After completing this assignment, I realized that I had been accepted into a professional and social network of individuals who had enhanced my professional opportunities. In addition to meeting the performance indicators and measures for the situations, this professional and social network was a significant asset.
My professional and social network crossed disciplinary, ethnic, and gender boundaries. We should not forget that informal networking and mentoring are important in recruitment.
The soft/hard interpretations might be adequate to explain the emotional aspects of the issue of affirmative action/minority recruitment, which are so often associated with the notions of "historical guilt" and "welfare to help the lesser."
What I see missing in this discussion is the belief in equal opportunity and the essential role of this belief in attempts to implement affirmative action policy and minority recruitment. Anyone who wishes to succeed in implementation of AA and minority recruitment needs first to recognize that all groups of people are equal in their ability and potential to succeed on a job, and that the success of one group (i.e., the majority) over other groups (i.e., the minorities) in employment is often due to personal and job qualifications not directly related to the ability to perform the duties. These may include the favorable social and economic status that provides the individual better exposure to the group environment and the compatibility of the individual with the existing group social culture.
To translate these recognitions into implementation policies is complex and difficult, which probably is one of the reasons why politicians and managers have too often chosen to interpret affirmative action as "proportional representation" (i.e., quota system based on population distribution) without addressing the environmental and cultural aspects of job qualifications in recruitment. Compounding the issue is the common practice that leaves affirmative action behind once recruitment is done. The perception that "once I get you in the door, it's up to you to prove to me you can do the job" accepts majority nativism and the mentality that affirmative action is a policy in which the majority "gives" and the minorities "receive." (the soft interpretation?) This practice of quota recruitment without retention effort is the main reason why so many employers fail in affirmative action policy.
So if we are serious about minority recruitment, it is necessary for us to see it as what it really is: a long-term, pains-taking process of diversification that involves both external environmental changing forces and internal self-examination as well as the willingness to change ourselves. Some external environmental changing forces are already present. The ever more diverse library user population forces us to learn about more different but equally important information needs. The development of the net technology has already shown its effect on the recent increase of gender diversity in some LIS programs. (The gender stereotyping of book lovers vs. net lovers is a separate issue to be explored.)
What we still need is to treat the issue of diversity as a two-way learning avenue, by examining our curriculum and challenging ourselves and our students to identify the social and cultural bias in library collections and tools and to think alternatives. Librarians need to do the same in their libraries. Until the time when we can show our learning environment and group culture as diverse, minority recruitment will still meet limited success and minority retention will be even harder to achieve.
Staff in academic libraries should consider these casual young patrons as a small group or minority which merits special attention. Firstly, because they need help; secondly, because they grasp very fast how to use OPACs; thirdly, because, by treating them well, they become regular users; last but not least, because among these children or youth we can find exceedingly interested users. This means that later, a couple of them might become librarians; as Kathleen Koontz cited, some of us "admitted being interested in the field since childhood due to their relationship with children's librarians". Exceptionally, elementary school teachers wish introductions for their classes; a prerequisite is a certain preparation through the teacher before the class visits the library. A particular form of contact is given when children interview librarians about their professional work.
Early contacts between librarians and children or youth are not directly "professional recruitment", but the first-hand insights the young clients get at these occasions can pave the way to it.
I speak from the point of view of someone who has watched as folk who were "different" in libraries in which I have worked have been overlooked for promotions, not considered for expanded job assignments, and even fired on trumped-up charges. It has all been so sad. One helped when one could, but the system is too strong and those willing to take a stand have been too few.
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