Libraries & Diversity for Not-so Diverse Populations
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This presentation focuses on what the American Library Association (ALA) and it’s youth associations (ALSC & YALSA) have done in the past to support and encourage diverse collections and services, as well as what they are doing currently. It also suggests simple ways that libraries can successfully add diversity to their collections and make sure that those items circulate.
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Libraries & Diversity for Not-so Diverse Populations
- 1. LIBRARIES & DIVERSITY FOR NOT-SO DIVERSE POPULATIONS
- 3. LIBRARY AWARDS THAT CELEBRATE DIVERSITY • Coretta Scott King Awards – 1969 • Mildred L. Batchelder Award – 1966 • Pura Belpré Award – 1996 • Amelia Bloomer Book List – 2002 • Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature – 2003 • Schneider Family Book Award – 2004 • American Indian Youth Literature Awards – 2006 • Rainbow Book List – 2007 • Stonewall Book Award: Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award – 2010
- 4. AWARDS THAT CELEBRATE DIVERSITY • Jane Addams Children’s Book Awards: books that effectively promote the cause of peace, social justice, world community, and equality • Américas Award: books that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the U.S. • Arab American Book Award: books written by and about Arab Americans • The Christopher Awards: media that affirm the highest values of the human spirit • Dolly Gray Children’s Literature Award: Books that appropriately portray individuals with developmental disabilities • In the Margins Book Award: books by, for, and about children and teens living in the margins • Ezra Jack Keats Book Award: books that portray universal qualities of childhood, strong and supportive family, and multiculturalism • Walter Dean Myers Award: books that best exemplify Myers’s commitment to providing children with powerful mirrors and windows
- 5. AWARDS THAT CELEBRATE DIVERSITY • National Jewish Book Award: books of Jewish interest • Notable Books for a Global Society: books that enhance understanding of individuals and cultures throughout the world • Once Upon a World Children’s Book Award: books that deal with issues of tolerance, diversity, and social justice • Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award: literature that depicts the Mexican American experience • Skipping Stones Honor Awards: multicultural and nature books • Sydney Taylor Book Award: books that authentically portray the Jewish experience • Carter G. Woodson Book Awards: social studies-related books that depict ethnicity and race relations sensitively and accurately
- 6. MAJOR LIBRARY REVIEW JOURNALS • Booklist • The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books • The Horn Book • Kirkus • Publishers Weekly • School Library Journal • VOYA
- 8. CHANGE IN REVIEWS Published in 2004 Published in 2015 Published in 2006Published in 2002 Published in 2004 Published in 2015
- 9. DIVERSE REVIEWERS & BLOGS • Latin@s In Kid Lit: latinosinkidlit.com • Rich In Color: richincolor.com • Masala Reader: masalareader.wordpress.com • American Indians In Children’s Literature: americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com • The Brown Bookshelf: thebrownbookshelf.com • Crazy QuiltEdi: campbele.wordpress.com • Kids Read in Colour: kids.readincolour.com • Reading In Color: blackteensread2.blogspot.com • BookDragon: smithsonianapa.org/bookdragon • I’m Your Neighbor: imyourneighborbooks.org • Vamos A Leer: teachinglatinamericathroughliterature.wordpress.com • All Brown All Around: all-brown-all-around.blogspot.com • Oyate: oyate.org • De Colores: The Raza Experience in Books for Children: decoloresreviews.blogspot.com • Disability in KidLit: disabilityinkidlit.com • Gay YA: gayya.org • I’m Here. I’m Queer. What The Hell Do I Read?: leewind.org • LGBT YA Reviews: lgbt-ya.tumblr.com • Youth in Custody: youthlibraries.org • YA Interrobang Inclusivity: yainterrobang.com/category/inclusivity • The Pirate Tree: thepiratetree.com • Alex Sanchez: alexsanchez.com/default.asp
- 10. HOW DO THE REVIEWS COMPARE? Published in 2015 “But right now, Mikey, perfectly normal, not-superpowered Mikey, has more pressing, if prosaic, things to worry about in the little time he has left before college—namely, getting cozy with beautiful Henna, connecting with his sister, dealing with his paralyzing anxiety, and hanging with his best friend, who happens to be a God of Cats.” (Booklist) “The narrative’s real weight is attached to the mostly realistic events surrounding Mikey: the “loops” that his OCD traps him in; his sister Mel’s severe eating disorder; the outside attention on the family because of his politician mom; a love quadrangle involving longtime friends and fluid sexualities.” (Horn Book) “Mikey simply wants to graduate, enjoy his friendships, and maybe, just maybe, kiss his longtime crush. All that's easier said than done, however, thanks to his struggles with anxiety, his dreadful parents, and the latest group of indie kids discovering their "capital-D Destinies.” (Kirkus) “Zombie deer and eerie blue pillars of light suggest apocalypse (again) in their remote town in Washington State, but they are busy trying to survive familial dysfunction (their father is an alcoholic, their mother a power-hungry politician) that has worsened Mikey’s anxiety and given Mel an eating disorder.” (Publishers Weekly)
- 11. ALA INITIATIVES & PROGRAMS Family Literacy Initiative • Created by ALA in partnerships with: • Chinese-American Library Association (CALA) • REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking • Black Caucus of the American Library Association (BCALA) • Asian/Pacific Librarians Association (APALA) • American Indian Library Association (AILA) Diversity in Action: Día de los Niños—Día de los Libros
- 12. YOUTH LIBRARIANS: ALSC & YALSA
- 15. WHAT MAKES A BOOK CIRCULATE?
- 16. BOOK DISPLAYS & BULLETIN BOARDS
- 19. PROGRAMMING
- 20. RECOGNIZING OUR ROLE IN THE PROBLEM 1. Diversity in children’s lit 2. Partnerships and outreach 3. Age specific programming 4. STEM/STEAM 5. Summer learning 6. Difficult conversations 7. Media mentorship 8. Recent immigrant communities 9. Collection development 10. Diversity in the profession 11. Advocacy 12. Gender diversity 13. Networking
- 21. WHAT CAN YOU DO? CHECK THEM OUT!
Editor's Notes
- Diversity in library collections and services are hot topics in the library world currently, and when I thought of focusing my talk today on this subject, I got really excited. I dove into my research, but I was surprised by what I found. Not because the library world doesn’t value diversity, but because it has. . .for a long, long time. Yet, this emphasis on expanding the diversity of library collections hasn’t changed what’s being written, published, or bought. It hasn’t even significantly changed what you’ll find on most library shelves. While that was discouraging to realize, it also reminded me of something I already knew. Circulation and reviews are the major drivers of library purchases. Today, I’m going to talk about what the American Library Association and it’s youth associations have done in the past to support and encourage diverse collections and services, as well as what they are doing currently. I’ll also discuss simple ways that local and regional libraries can successfully add diversity to their collections and make sure that those items circulate.
- Hopefully everyone here has heard of the We Need Diverse Books movement. It’s been an important force in children’s and teen writing, publishing, and book selling since it was launched in April 2014. Not surprisingly, it’s also impacted libraries. As I mentioned, the library world was trying to champion diversity in children’s and teen books even before We Need Diverse Books, but that doesn’t mean the movement hasn’t had a positive impact on libraries and significantly influenced both our awareness of this ongoing need and the way we discuss it as a profession. As I talk about diversity in libraries, I’m going to keep mentioning We Need Diverse Books and ways the movement has reinvigorated the library world to promote and think about diversity.
- The American Library Association has a number of awards and best books lists that focus on diversity. But, none of these awards was created in response to the We Need Diverse Books movement. Instead, this has been a long term project for national library organizations in attempts to promote diverse books and diverse writers and illustrators by acknowledging outstanding writing and illustrating. The most famous of these awards are probably the Coretta Scott King Awards which were established in 1969. But the Coretta Scott King awards were not the first to focus on diversity. The Mildred L. Batchelder Award for translated children’s books was established in 1966 and was initially presented at the International Children’s Book Day on April 2nd. The Pura Belpré Award, which was established in 1996, honors books that best portray, affirm, and celebrate Latino cultural experiences. The first Amelia Bloomer Book List was announced in 2002 for children’s and teen books that include significant feminist content. In 2003, the Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association awarded their first medal for books about Asian/Pacific Americans and their heritage. Schneider Family Book Award is given to a book that emphasizes the artistic expression of the disability experience for children and or adolescent audiences. The book must portray some aspect of living with a disability or that of a friend or family member, whether the disability is physical, mental or emotional. And in 2006 the American Indian Library Association established Youth Literature Awards that honor writing and illustrations by and about American Indians. Rainbow Book List was first announced in 2007 to highlight books with significant and authentic gay/lesbian/bisexual/trans-gendered/queer-questioning (GLBTQ) content for young people. The Stonewall Book Awards began as an independent adult book award category called the Gay Book award in 1971. It became an official ALA award in 1986 and the name was changed to the Stonewall Book Award in 2002. In 2010 the award was expanded to include a Children’s and Young Adult Literature Award. These are the library specific awards, but there are many awards and best books lists that libraries use when selecting for their collections.
- Most of the awards that celebrate diversity are created by specific minority groups and focus on that groups’ lived experience, but some of the awards, like the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and the Notable Books for a Global Society list seek to recognize books that promote a better understanding of social justice and the value of difference. The Walter Dean Myers Award is the newest addition to this list. It was created and awarded for the first time in 2015 by the We Need Diverse Books organization to recognize the best diverse children’s book written by a diverse author in a given year.
- As you can guess, not all libraries utilize every one of these awards when they are selecting materials for their collections. But, many libraries make a concerted effort to use these awards and lists as touchstones to be sure they are adding books and materials that speak to a variety of experiences. The awards and best books lists cited here are one of the tools libraries use, but as important as awards are reviews.
- Most libraries rely heavily on review sources when adding books and other media to their collections. There are seven journals that review children’s and teen materials that are most commonly used by libraries. The review journals each have different methodologies for what they review and how they rank items. Some of them only print positive reviews, while others publish positive and negative reviews. Some have professional staff, while others utilize volunteers for their reviews. Although most libraries place high value on what their patrons request, reviews are far and away the driving force behind library collections. Not only do reviews provide a synopsis and rating for new books, the review journals are one of the best sources for keeping track of what is being published in any given year. Reviews are used to make selections and to defend purchases if a book is challenged. So, reviewers’ opinions matter, and it’s not going to surprise anyone here to learn that the majority of reviewers, especially of children’s and adolescent materials, are white, heterosexual, women.
- This was demonstrated definitively through the Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey. While the survey was voluntary, eight review journals participated. Of those listed earlier, only VOYA and The Bulletin didn’t participate. The Lee & Low survey results are illuminating for more than just the review journals, and I encourage you to look at their whole infographic. This portion shows only the book reviewers, the race chart shows that no minority group represents more than 3% of the reviewers. The gender chart indicates that only 1% of reviewers identify as nonconforming to traditional genders and no reviewers identify as transsexual. The sexual orientation chart, shows that 1% of reviewers identify as bisexual/pansexual and 8% as lesbian or gay. And the disability chart shows that 12% of reviewers identify as having a disability. After reviewing the survey results, SLJ Reviews Director, Kiera Parrott wrote a guest post for the blog Reading While White. In her entry, she discussed both the clear need to remedy this situation and how SLJ has used the data to create action items to help them recruit new reviewers from more diverse backgrounds, develop diversity/cultural literacy training for their existing reviewers, and create a free online course for reviewers centered on examining how they look at “diverse books,” how they recognize their own blinders and prejudices when it comes to book evaluation, and how they clearly articulate both praise and criticism in professional reviews. Similarly, other review journals have set diversity goals, for example, Horn Book states, “Our goal is to create an inclusive, respectful environment that invites participation from people of all races, ethnicities, genders, ages, abilities, religions, and sexual orientation. To that end, we’re actively seeking to increase the diversity of our contributors, speakers, and sponsors through our in-house development of content, events, open calls for proposals, and through dialogue with the larger communities we serve.” While Vicky Smith, the children’s and teen editor at Kirkus, notes that Kirkus is “working hard to describe race and ethnicity accurately when we see it in the books that we review, as well as sexual orientation, gender identity, and disability. We hope that by including that information in our reviews our readers will be able to make the most responsible purchasing decisions for their homes and libraries.” Kirkus is also actively recruiting diverse reviewers, to provide a variety of lenses into the literature.
- I’ve noticed a change in the reviews over the last 2 years, and I want to do a brief comparison to demonstrate some of the things I’ve noticed. 1) The first two books are Fourth-Grade Fuss by Hurwitz and A Handful of Stars by Lord. In all 4 of the reviews of Fourth-Grade Fuss there is not a single mention of Julio Sanchez’s ethnicity, nor is it mentioned in the publisher’s description of the book. When I was searching for a title to compare, this book came up because one of the MARC record subject headings is Hispanic Americans – Fiction which is the only indication that there is a diverse character in the book at all. In reviews of A Handful of Stars, on the other hand, all 5 reviews note that Salma, the new friend of the protagonist, is the child of migrant workers and an outsider to the Maine community. With one review naming Salma as a Latina migrant. Several of the reviews also note that the protagonist discovers her own unconscious prejudices as well as prejudice of townsfolk. 2) The discussion in reviews of the portrayal of autism in books published over the last 14 years is more even. In reviews for all four of these titles, A Wizard Alone by Duane, Al Capone Does My Shirts by Choldenko, Rules by Lord, and How to Speak Dolphin by Rorby, the fact that one of the characters is on the autism spectrum is discussed. However, although reviewers acknowledge the characters with autism in A Wizard Alone, the impact of the disability on the story isn’t discussed, except by Horn Book which notes that the autism seems to be tacked on. In reviews of Al Capone Does My Shirts, Rules, and How to Speak Dolphin, the accuracy of how each author portrays autism’s impact on the entire cast of characters, family, friends, and sometimes even acquaintances is addressed; although the authenticity of the portrayal of autism spectrum disorder is discussed only in reviews of Rules.
- Even with the efforts major review journals are making to enlist more diverse reviewers and to train their current reviewers to more fairly review diverse books, there is a great deal of room for new voices. And, in the last few years, review blogs have popped up across the internet. These sites highlight books that aren’t being reviewed by mainstream journals and provide a different take on books that are reviewed by those journals, allowing librarians to find reviews that focus on specific ethnic and racial diversities, sexual and gender diversities, even physical abilities and social justice issues. The names of some of the blogs indicate a certain racial or ethnic focus, but some are less obvious, like Crazy QuiltEdi which focuses on books and authors that appeal to those of African, Caribbean, Latino, Asian or Native American descent or Pirate Tree which focuses on literature and writers that delve into themes of social justice and social conscience. [Don’t read all the descriptions, but keep in notes in case someone asks about one in particular.] Latin@s in Kid Lit: engage with works about, for, and/or by Latin@s in order to encourage interest in Latina children’s, juvenile, and teen literature Rich in Color is dedicated to reading, reviewing, talking about, and otherwise promoting young adult fiction starring or written by people of color or people from First/Native Nations. Masala Reader: This librarian blogs about multicultural literature for children and young adults, reviewing books featuring main characters and settings from diverse cultures and sharing critical analyses about multicultural elements in all the books reviewed. American Indians in Children's Literature Shares a lot of information to help readers learn about and understand the 500+ federally recognized Native Nations in the United States. The site analyzes of children's books, lesson plans, films, and other items related to the topic of American Indians and/or how we this topic is taught in school. The Brown Bookshelf is designed to push awareness of the myriad of African American voices writing for young readers. Their flagship initiative is 28 Days Later, a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans. Crazy QuiltEdi provides information to improve the literacy of teens and preteens of color. Edi provides information about technology tools, scholarships, internships, library developments, books and authors that may have appeal to those of African, Caribbean, Latino, Asian or Native American descent. The site reviews books written by authors of color and/or that feature teens and preteens of color as main characters and that will be available for purchase in the US. Kids Read in Colour is a subsection of Read in Colour which specializes in literary reviews & promotion of adult & children's books featuring African, African-American, Asian, Caribbean, Latino & Native American characters. Reading in Color is a book blog that reviews YA/MG books about people of color. Disability in Kidlit helps readers, booksellers, librarians, and educators find good portrayals of disability in MG/YA books, both by discussing books via reviews and by offering them the tools to judge these books for themselves. Gay YA doesn’t publish negative reviews, instead they critique the representation and portrayal of queer characters in books for children and adults. I’m Here. I’m Queer. What the Hell Do I Read? Shares reviews of GLBTQ teen books LGBT YA Reviews has review, articles, and images from and about LGBT books for teens. Library Services for Youth in Custody is an organization serving the needs of and advocating for those who provide library services for youth in custody. The group grew out of yalsa-lockdown. YA Interrobang Inclusivity: This subsection of YA Interrobang focuses on diversity of all kinds, highlighting diverse award winner lists and printing informational articles, author interviews, and original essays. The Pirate Tree: seeks to expose and discuss literature and writers for children and teenagers that delve into themes of social justice and social conscience. The site is interested in books and writers that question and rebel against the status quo, argue for peace and reconciliation, take the side of the marginalized and powerless, and use creative solutions to overcome obstacles. Children’s Literature & Reading Special Interest Group of the International Reading Association sponsors a Notable Books for a Global Society list that Book Dragon is an initiative of the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center. The site has author interviews and book reviews for all ages. Vamos A Leer is a site focused on adding Latino/Latina materials to school curriculums. To that end, they create annotated bibliographies of children’s and teen literature as well as publishing individual book reviews.
- I’d like to briefly compare one of these independent blogs to some of the mainstream reviewers to demonstrate the very different nature of the reviews. Disability in Kids Lit only reviews books with characters who have disabilities, and their reviews focus on the authenticity in portrayal of these disabilities. In The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness, Mike’s Obsessive Compulsive Disorder is an important part of the plot and character development. In her review of the book for Disability in Kids Lit, Helen Corcoran discusses many aspects of the novel, but focuses on the portrayal of Mike’s OCD and it’s impact on Mike and the characters around him. Corcoran highlights where Ness gets the portrayal right, like when he “goes beyond the trope by brutally showing the consequences of constantly washing: Mike's hands redden, and crack, and become sore as he washes them, again and again, something that's often glossed over” and where she feels like he lets readers down: “While Jared's healing ability can be seen as the equivalent of medication, and the suggestion is given from a place of love, it jars with the previous portrayal of Mike's slow recovery and learning to manage his anxiety.” Mainstream reviewers, in comparison, only mention Mike’s OCD in passing as though it is simple character development. For example, in the above quotes, from Booklist “dealing with his paralyzing anxiety”; from Horn Book “the loops that his OCD traps him in”; from Kirkus “All that’s easier said than done, however, thanks to his struggles with anxiety”; and from Publishers Weekly “survive familial dysfunction. . .that has worsened Mikey’s anxiety.” While SLJ and VOYA don’t mention the OCD at all. Having read The Rest of Us Just Live Here myself, I was shocked to reread these reviews and realize that someone selecting the book based on these reviews probably wouldn’t know one of the most important facets of both the character and the novel.
- Feeling overwhelmed by all those awards and review sources? Me too! But, there’s more. Over the years, the American Library Association has sponsored and participated in a number of initiatives to reach diverse populations and encourage them to read books that highlight their cultural heritage. One such initiative was the Family Literacy Initiative of 2009-2010. Then ALA president, Dr. Camila Alire, launched the Family Literacy Focus to encourage and inspire families in ethnically diverse communities to read and learn together. Another such initiative is the Diversity in Action program, otherwise known as Día. This national program was created by Pat Mora and REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking, in 1996, but it is now sponsored and supported by the Association for Library Services to Children. Día celebrates children, families, and reading though out the year, but culminates in a yearly program on April 30. The celebration emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds. It is a daily commitment to linking children and their families to diverse books, languages, and cultures.
- Although ALSC & YALSA have highlighted the importance of diversity in collections and programs for years, the attention that Children’s and Teen national library organizations pay to this topic has increased significantly since the inception of the WNDB movement. ALSC and the Children’s Book Council hosted a Day of Diversity preconference to the American Library Associations annual Midwinter conference in 2015, and their fall 2015 issue of Children & Libraries focuses exclusively on diversity in the field. YALSA’s Journal of Research on Libraries & Young Adults (JRLYA) theme for it’s most recent publication is Serving GLBTQ Teens and YALSA’s free webinar in April 2016 is Serving the Needs of ESL Immigrant and Refugee Teens in Your Community. Both ALSC and YALSA utilize their blogs to write articles recommending diverse books, making recommendations for how traditional programs can serve diverse patrons, and discussing how libraries can better serve diverse patrons. ALSC, especially, has highlighted the need for programs for children on the Autism Spectrum and those who have other disabilities.
- ALA has many resources, roundtables, and sub-organizations to try and support diverse collections and populations. They also have several scholarships to help minority members who wish to join the library profession. Many of the sub-organizations of ALA have diversity standards as part of their professional competencies. These changes are encouraging, and the national dialog I’ve been reading through blogs, professional library sites, and listservs make me excited to watch changes take place in our regional libraries. But, national discussions and changes to national organizations aren’t enough. And neither are the addition of diverse reviewers to independent and mainstream review sites. This is clear because the children’s and teen literature communities and the library community have had these initiatives, awards, and discussions for a long, long time. By now, libraries should be teaming with diverse books and diverse librarians. But as the WNDB movement reminds us, they still aren’t.
- It’s easy to blame the publishing industry and the review journals for the lack of diverse books on library shelves. But even with the small number of diverse books being published and reviewed, many libraries purchase only a small fraction of the diverse titles that are currently available. So, if ALA, ALSC, and YALSA all encourage libraries to purchase diverse books for their youth collections, why aren’t more libraries doing so? What keeps libraries both from purchasing these titles and from demanding more of them? The simple answer that I’ve heard, over and over again, in libraries of all sizes is “They don’t circulate!” Local change takes local initiative. As I mentioned at the beginning of my talk, circulation drives library purchases. While it is wonderful that most of the mainstream review journals trusted by libraries are making attempts to review more books with diverse characters, if those types of books don’t circulate at a local level, libraries still won’t add them to their collections.
- Circulation statistics are the ultimate benchmark for library purchases. Circulation statistics forced libraries to transition from collections for public “self-improvement” to shelves stocked with bestsellers, no matter what the reviewers and critics say. Books, like popular romances, TV and movie tie-ins, and graphic novels are all in libraries because the public wants them there. While, libraries can’t control popular taste, there are a number of simple things that libraries can do to create demand for a title.
- Librarians create book displays around all sorts of themes and topics: from holidays to libraryland in jokes. Displays are used to promote certain collections or titles, and even coordinate with school curriculum. Displaying a book has a huge impact on whether it circulates. Even small displays, like placing books face-out on the regular bookshelves or on top of low bookshelves increases the chance that it will be checked out. Bulletin boards containing images or titles related to a topic also increase circulation of those materials. These are both fairly passive ways to promote books, and neither displays nor bulletin boards need to be focused solely on a minority, so libraries don’t have to wait for a multicultural holiday to promote such books. Instead, diverse books should be mingled into all displays.
- A slightly more active way for libraries to promote diverse books is to add them to their booklists. Almost every library has a collection of suggested reading lists for patrons to use to find new titles. These lists are a form of passive readers’ advisory, working a little like Amazon’s “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” and “Frequently Bought Together” lists. Because libraries don’t track what is being checked out together, librarians use genre information and circulation statistics to create these recommended reading lists. Adding diverse titles to these lists isn’t difficult. All it requires is looking at diverse books as more than their diversity. If a librarian is creating a mystery list, she can easily add a mystery with an Asian protagonist. If we go with the premise that all books are in one genre or another, then putting a book on a certain list is about finding the matching genre, not about finding the matching skin color.
- Creating recommended reading lists will help get a librarian ready for my next suggestion, which is active readers’ advisory. Readers’ Advisory, which is commonly called handselling in bookstores, is the act of talking with patrons about what they have read, watched, listened to, or even played in the past and helping them select new titles based both on what they’ve enjoyed and what they’ve disliked about specific titles. This takes a lot of listening and knowledge. To be able to convincingly recommend a diverse title to a patron requires that a librarian be familiar enough with the book that she can talk about more than just the diversity within it. There are readers’ advisory resources both in print and online that can help librarians with their readers’ advisory skills and knowledge.
- Programming for children and teens is a core service in libraries, and most libraries try to tie their programs into their collections. By combining diverse programs with the related materials in a library’s collection, the library doubles the benefit of the program. They expose their patrons to diverse ideas and activities through the program, and they increase the circulation of their own diverse materials. Such programming can even inspire patrons to recommend titles for the library to purchase and suggest ways that they can share their own worldviews. Programs are an excellent opportunity for libraries to create partnerships with organizations that include and support diverse populations. By letting these groups know that the library has materials that speak to their experiences, libraries can gain strong allies. Alternately, programs designed to be inclusive to diverse groups expose the entire community to hidden needs.
- In order for these changes to happen on a local level, librarians need to understand their role in upholding the status quo or making the change. While most librarians see value in an increase in the diversity of books and materials available, they don’t necessarily feel that their library is where the shift needs to occur. This is evident in a recent ALSC poll about which topics children’s librarians want to see at the ALA annual meeting. While diversity in children’s literature tops the list of topics, diversity in the profession ranks #10 and gender diversity #12, indicating that while librarians maybe happy to see a change in what is published, they aren’t as concerned with the system in which the books are written, reviewed, purchased, and consumed. I keep hearing librarians use the excuse that, “Our community doesn’t have a lot of diversity.” But there is diversity in all communities. It may not be visible diversity. It may not be racial diversity. It may be a population with a hidden disability, like autism spectrum disorder or mental health issues. It maybe sexual and gender diversity. But it’s there. And, for anyone who wants to argue, that no, our community really is 100% mainstream culture, well, if we are going to change publishing and libraries non-diverse communities need to be exposed to difference too. Reading is a window into new thoughts and experiences that make the “other” less frightening. Which leads me to recommend that everyone interested in being part of the change needs to acknowledge what “mainstream” culture is. A good place to start is by reading the Reading While White blog. This blog was created by white librarians in dialog with the We Need Diverse Books movement as a spot where white people who want diverse books can be allies to our diverse colleagues and patrons without appropriating their voices and space. As an organization, Reading While White is trying to confront racism in the field of children’s and young adult literature. They publish guest posts, books lists, and informational articles focused on helping white people challenge their assumptions and acknowledge white people’s responsibility to change the balance of white privilege.
- Finally, I want to leave you with one thing that you can do. It’s easy, and you may have already guessed what it is. Check out books by diverse authors and illustrators. Not just the award winners. Check out books that focus on diverse experiences. Not just racial diversity. Check out books that challenge mainstream opinions. Not just political opinions. And, if those books aren’t in your library, request them through interlibrary loan. Ask your library to purchase them. Or donate them from your own collection.