Diversity and the Value of Perspective
(The following was originally a blog for our class on library management)
I was born one of those white protestant Anglo-Saxons (Well, Français-Normand technically, but we conquered the Anglo-Saxons so close enough), the proverbial top of the American cultural food chain. In theory all the doors of opportunity are open to me, though in practice it’s more a matter of wealth and connections. Yet here in the field of librarianship I’m technically a minority. It’s not a matter of discrimination in this case but simply a lack of male applicants—even in this class we have three men to seventeen women, which is the sort of proportion that is likely reflected in the program as a whole.
Looking at the demographics of librarians collected by ALA, they report that the field consists of approximately 87.1% white, 80.7% female, 56% aged 45-74. By comparison, the demographics for the US as a whole are 77.9% white, 50.8% female. To make the comparison easier to see:
Male | Female | White | Afican-American | Asian | Hispanic | Amerindian | Pacific Islander
Libraries: 19.3 | 80.7 | 87.1 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 1.1 | 0.3*
USA: 49.2 | 50.8 | 77.9 | 13.1 | 5.1 | 16.9 | 1.2 | 0.2*
NC: 48.7 | 51.3 | 71.9 | 22 | 2.5 | 8.7 | 1.5 | 0.1*
Greensboro: 47 | 53 | 48.4 | 40.6 | 4 | 7.5 | 0.5 | 0.1*
UNCG: 32 | 68 | 72 | 20 | - | - | - | -**
*(Census Bureau)
**(UNC ACCESS, remaining 8% unreported)
What we see in comparing this data is that libraries show some sharp deviations from the national, state, and even city level data. The most dramatic deviations are in the male-to-female ratio and in the representation of African Americans, who in libraries just barely outpace Asians (indeed, African-American males are one of the most under-represented groups in libraries). Hispanic populations show an even greater deviation, with a difference of 13 percentage points between national and library demographics.
Libraries, by their nature, ought to be representations of their community, yet here we clearly see that there is a deep divide between the community and the library. Various programs are starting to work to rectify this, such as the ACE Scholars program, but the deeper question has to be asked as to why the divide exists in the first place. Sadly I’m not equipped to answer a question like this, but it’s a problem that plagues libraries and a sign that diversity in staffing is a problem that all directors are going to face.
Mind you, the goal ought not to be diversity for diversity’s sake. Looking at it from that perspective often reduces it to something hollow and artificial, just a bunch of pretty statistics. No, diversity is something very much bound up in innovation, adaptation, and effective operations. After all, a library composed primarily of white women is going to best be equipped to serve primarily white women, adapting to the trends, needs, thoughts, and ideas that orbit around that social segment. Problem is, that accounts for only 39.6% of the US population (by my own crude estimates). This means that a good 60.4% are under-represented, if indeed represented at all. This means that an understanding of key segments of the community ends up unheard, and their perspectives on how to adapt, grow, advocate, and meet the needs of a diverse community are largely lost to the library.
Granted anyone can attempt to reach out to any other group, but I as an American would be hard pressed to intuit the needs and desires as well as the thoughts and ideas of, say, a Turkish audience. I can attempt to do some research, but there’s no way I can gain the sort of cultural understanding gained from growing up Turkish, and as such I’d be far better served speaking with if not outright bringing aboard Turkish individuals to allow the library to better reach out to the Turkish community and benefit from Turkish thought and perspectives. It’s much the same situation when we’re talking about the difference not only between the standard divisions of ethnicity but also other divisions of culture and people such as age, language, disabilities, religion, and even region of origin and nearly every other factor which helps shape and alter our own individual cultural lens.
Thus the goal isn’t diversity for the sake of statistics or even just diversity to make the community happy, but diversity to drive innovation and provide new and alternative perspectives on the way forward while also meeting the needs of the community in the most effective ways possible. The more viewpoints there are, the more likely one is to be able to unite and synthesize from them the best ideas possible which, in a field reliant on adapting to and meeting the needs of the people, is invaluable.
Of course, the issue of diversity is very much a multi-faceted one for a manager as they must contend not only with helping create a diverse workforce, but ensuring that workforce works together as one rather than as separate, even oppositional pieces. Maintaining morale and positive environments while combatting people’s instinctive cliquishness and the sad remnants of racist divides is no easy task on top of everything else a manager must manage, and indeed it often feels easy to just push it aside and focus on easier, less controversial issues. But it’s an issue which must be tackled—not just at libraries themselves but at the educational programs which shape and produce librarians, as libraries will naturally draw from the pool of available MLIS candidates, and if that pool is lopsided in anyway then the libraries that draw them will be as well.
In the end it’s a challenge that libraries must face and overcome, proving that in this, as in other things, they can adapt, grow, and broaden horizons.
United States Census Bureau. " State & County QuickFacts" US QuickFacts. United States Census Bureau. Web. 17 April 2014. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37000.html
UNC ACCESS PROJECT. “University of North Carolina at Greensboro ACCESS Summary” Data and Links: 16 Campuses of UNC. UNC ACCESS PROJECT. Web. 17 April 2014. http://access.unc.edu/wheelchair/unc-g.htm#Summary
I was born one of those white protestant Anglo-Saxons (Well, Français-Normand technically, but we conquered the Anglo-Saxons so close enough), the proverbial top of the American cultural food chain. In theory all the doors of opportunity are open to me, though in practice it’s more a matter of wealth and connections. Yet here in the field of librarianship I’m technically a minority. It’s not a matter of discrimination in this case but simply a lack of male applicants—even in this class we have three men to seventeen women, which is the sort of proportion that is likely reflected in the program as a whole.
Looking at the demographics of librarians collected by ALA, they report that the field consists of approximately 87.1% white, 80.7% female, 56% aged 45-74. By comparison, the demographics for the US as a whole are 77.9% white, 50.8% female. To make the comparison easier to see:
Male | Female | White | Afican-American | Asian | Hispanic | Amerindian | Pacific Islander
Libraries: 19.3 | 80.7 | 87.1 | 4.3 | 3.5 | 3.9 | 1.1 | 0.3*
USA: 49.2 | 50.8 | 77.9 | 13.1 | 5.1 | 16.9 | 1.2 | 0.2*
NC: 48.7 | 51.3 | 71.9 | 22 | 2.5 | 8.7 | 1.5 | 0.1*
Greensboro: 47 | 53 | 48.4 | 40.6 | 4 | 7.5 | 0.5 | 0.1*
UNCG: 32 | 68 | 72 | 20 | - | - | - | -**
*(Census Bureau)
**(UNC ACCESS, remaining 8% unreported)
What we see in comparing this data is that libraries show some sharp deviations from the national, state, and even city level data. The most dramatic deviations are in the male-to-female ratio and in the representation of African Americans, who in libraries just barely outpace Asians (indeed, African-American males are one of the most under-represented groups in libraries). Hispanic populations show an even greater deviation, with a difference of 13 percentage points between national and library demographics.
Libraries, by their nature, ought to be representations of their community, yet here we clearly see that there is a deep divide between the community and the library. Various programs are starting to work to rectify this, such as the ACE Scholars program, but the deeper question has to be asked as to why the divide exists in the first place. Sadly I’m not equipped to answer a question like this, but it’s a problem that plagues libraries and a sign that diversity in staffing is a problem that all directors are going to face.
Mind you, the goal ought not to be diversity for diversity’s sake. Looking at it from that perspective often reduces it to something hollow and artificial, just a bunch of pretty statistics. No, diversity is something very much bound up in innovation, adaptation, and effective operations. After all, a library composed primarily of white women is going to best be equipped to serve primarily white women, adapting to the trends, needs, thoughts, and ideas that orbit around that social segment. Problem is, that accounts for only 39.6% of the US population (by my own crude estimates). This means that a good 60.4% are under-represented, if indeed represented at all. This means that an understanding of key segments of the community ends up unheard, and their perspectives on how to adapt, grow, advocate, and meet the needs of a diverse community are largely lost to the library.
Granted anyone can attempt to reach out to any other group, but I as an American would be hard pressed to intuit the needs and desires as well as the thoughts and ideas of, say, a Turkish audience. I can attempt to do some research, but there’s no way I can gain the sort of cultural understanding gained from growing up Turkish, and as such I’d be far better served speaking with if not outright bringing aboard Turkish individuals to allow the library to better reach out to the Turkish community and benefit from Turkish thought and perspectives. It’s much the same situation when we’re talking about the difference not only between the standard divisions of ethnicity but also other divisions of culture and people such as age, language, disabilities, religion, and even region of origin and nearly every other factor which helps shape and alter our own individual cultural lens.
Thus the goal isn’t diversity for the sake of statistics or even just diversity to make the community happy, but diversity to drive innovation and provide new and alternative perspectives on the way forward while also meeting the needs of the community in the most effective ways possible. The more viewpoints there are, the more likely one is to be able to unite and synthesize from them the best ideas possible which, in a field reliant on adapting to and meeting the needs of the people, is invaluable.
Of course, the issue of diversity is very much a multi-faceted one for a manager as they must contend not only with helping create a diverse workforce, but ensuring that workforce works together as one rather than as separate, even oppositional pieces. Maintaining morale and positive environments while combatting people’s instinctive cliquishness and the sad remnants of racist divides is no easy task on top of everything else a manager must manage, and indeed it often feels easy to just push it aside and focus on easier, less controversial issues. But it’s an issue which must be tackled—not just at libraries themselves but at the educational programs which shape and produce librarians, as libraries will naturally draw from the pool of available MLIS candidates, and if that pool is lopsided in anyway then the libraries that draw them will be as well.
In the end it’s a challenge that libraries must face and overcome, proving that in this, as in other things, they can adapt, grow, and broaden horizons.
United States Census Bureau. " State & County QuickFacts" US QuickFacts. United States Census Bureau. Web. 17 April 2014. http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/37000.html
UNC ACCESS PROJECT. “University of North Carolina at Greensboro ACCESS Summary” Data and Links: 16 Campuses of UNC. UNC ACCESS PROJECT. Web. 17 April 2014. http://access.unc.edu/wheelchair/unc-g.htm#Summary