College and Research Libraries Academic Libraries and Affirmative Action: Approaching Cultural Diversity in the 1990s Cliff Glaviano and R. Errol Lam Affirmative action in academic libraries has had limited success in improving the percentage of minorities in librarianship. Alternative strategies to correct the unequal representation of mi- norities in academic libraries are suggested. The authors suggest that more emphasis on the value of establishing an environment of greater cultural diversity within the academic library as well as increasing the cross-cultural sensitivity of academic library staff may have a pro- found effect on the profession's ability to attract and retain minority librarians to serve the information needs of the multicultural college campus. ffirmative action to correct pre- vious racial imbalances in staff- ing throughout institutions of higher education began around 1972. Interest in affirmative action in aca- demic libraries was high initially, but sup- port throughout the profession has fluctu- ated considerably since 1972. And commitment-in terms of material sup- port for the recruiting and hiring of minor- ity librarians-can be typified as sporadic, usually underfunded, and of short dura- tion. Prior to affirmative action legislation, black librarians, for example, comprised 6 percent of professional librarians in 1960. By 1974, the percentage of black librarians rose to around 8 percent, though an ALA Black Caucus survey of twelve leading ac- ademic libraries (reported by E. J. Josey in 1975) indicated that blacks comprised only 2.2 percent of all professionals in those in- stitutions, with very few blacks repre- sented in middle management posi- tions.1'2 The ALA Yearbook for 1976 concluded that minority professionals were not being added to librarianship at a significant pace. 3 Increases in the numbers of black librarians by 1977 could be most optimistically described as "slow but steady." Similarly, statistics in the ALA Yearbooks for 1978, 1981, and 1982 docu- mented deliberate progress in adding mi- norities to the profession. The first ten years of operating under Equal Oppor- tunity/ Affirmative Action legislation had little effect in improving the success of re- cruiting minorities to librarianship or in raising the percentages of blacks and His- panics in academic libraries. The Supreme Court's 1978 decision in the Bakke case (Regents of the University of California vs. Allan Bakke), which recog- nized race as but one factor in affirmative action decision making, allowed employ- ers to limit minority recruitment to provid- ing only equal employment opportunity. In effect, employers, including academic libraries, began to base recruiting expecta- tions on the pool of minorities available Cliff Glaviano is Head, Catalog Department, and R. Errol Lam is a Reference Librarian in the Information Services Department of the University Libraries at Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH 43403 . 513 514 College & Research Libraries within an occupational specialty rather than attempting to recruit and train peo- ple of color in order to increase minority representation in the employment pool. Essentially, it became sufficient merely to document that job advertisements were made available to people of color through the general and ethnic media, that poten- tial minority candidates could be identi- fied in a pool of applicants, and, if avail- able in the pool, that minority candidates were interviewed for positions. Equal Em- ployment Opportunity became the de facto standard for minority employment fol- lowing the Bakke decision while affirma- tive action programs languished. Commenting in 1980 on the ability of li- braries to implement affirmative action, the ALA Office of Library Personnel Re- sources (OLPR) reported that, "little progress [was] made in the last three years and ... [there was] little hope for libraries coping with the problem of a limited mi- nority labor pool in implementing Affir- mative Action programs.'' 4 In 1981, Eliza- beth M. Dickinson posed the question, ''Is library affirmative action dead?" 5 Her call for library administrators to continue de- veloping and updating affirmative action programs despite slackening efforts by the federal government reflected the profes- sion's conscience, but had little solid influ- ence on contemporary library employ- ment practices. 6 The scant offerings in the library literature from 1982 to 1986 on af- firmative action or minority recruiting and retention would indicate that these topics were not a high priority in the profession. Statistics from 1986 indicating that blacks were only 4.1 percent of academic librari- ans tend to confirm that most affirmative action programs in place at that time were proving unsuccessful. Further, despite the profession's intellectual commitment to affirmative action, efforts in recruiting and retaining blacks in librarianship were clearly ineffective. The 1986 statistics did show some progress toward better repre- sentation of people of color in library man- agement (department head, assistant or associate director, director) than earlier surveys. 7 Research into the profession's ability to attract and retain people of color con- November 1990 ducted by Lorene B. Brown, and as part of Equity at Issue, the report of the ALA Presi- dent's Committee on Library Services to Minorities, indicated crisis-level lack of success through 1986.8'9 In 1987, Josey and Marva L. DeLoach agreed with Brown's conclusions of crisis and called for stronger minority input and representa- tion on policy-making bodies working to- ward improving library services to minori- ties, eventually attracting more people of color to the library profession. 10 The first ten years of operating under Equal Opportunity/ Affirmative Action legislation had little effect in improving the success of recruiting minorities to librarianship. The state of library affirmative action by the end of the 1980s can best be deter- mined from statistics compiled by William E. Moen and Kathleen M. Heim on gradu- ate library school students of 1988. Their survey of over 3,000 library school stu- dents indicated minority representation to be 6.2 percent overall, or, 3.7 percent blacks, 1.1 percent Asians/Pacific Island- ers, 0.8 percent Hispanics, 0.6 percent American Indians/Alaskan Natives. The compilers thought that ALA's "Each One Reach One" recruitment initiative from the Office for Library Personnel Resources (OLPR) had served to slow a recent de- cline in minorities entering the profes- sion. 11 But, the low percentage of people of color currently in librarianship would also indicate that ''Each One Reach One'' would result in only miniscule increases in the minority component of the profession in the near future. MINORITY POOL The ALA Yearbooks for 1982 to 1986 seem to indicate by their scant coverage of the particular concerns of black and Hispanic librarians, covered at much greater length in volumes from the 1970s to 1981, that the profession's concerns had shifted from the area of hiring and retaining people of color. Other social priorities, the status of women in librarianship or the related is- sue of pay equity, topics of greater imme- diate concern to the majority of library professionals, received more coverage. Speculation aside, it is safe to say that the percentages of people of color in the can- didate pools for professional positions in academic libraries has decreased since OLPR's 1981 report on library staffing12 later updated in its 1986 study, Academic and Public Librarians: Data by Race, Ethnicity and Sex. The latter reported that" ... mi- norities are recruited into librarianship in a percentage that is less than their avail- ability in the pool of college graduates,'' and that, "In particular, blacks ... fall short of their availability in the pool of un- dergraduate degree holders. " 13 The 1986 report indicates concern that declining mi- nority enrollment in library schools, exac- erbated by status and image problems of librarians and continued low salaries in entry-level positions, contributes to an in- creasingly negative assessment of the po- tential for recruiting people of color to the profession. Although demographics indicate that the black and Hispanic components of our population comprise nearly 20 percent of all Americans, academic libraries have been content to base their minority re- cruiting/retention goals at about 5 per- cent, based on the pool of minority candi- dates available in the profession according to the most recent (i.e., 1986) statistics from OLPR. 14 Considering that black li- brarians may continue to prefer working . in public libraries or in traditionally black colleges, even an expectation for a pool of 5 percent may be overly optimistic for aca- demic libraries at predominantly white in- stitutions (henceforth PWis). In fact, it seems likely that the pool of minority li- brarians has declined from a 5 percent availability of blacks and Hispanics to even less as those professionals retire or seek other careers. It is apparent that a large increase in the pool of minority li- brarians will not be forthcoming based on projections of the profession's recruiting potential from the 1986 OLPR study men- tioned earlier, and that not all of that mi- nority pool will be available to academic li- Academic Libraries 515 braries at PWis. If one measure of success in recruiting minorities is taken to be en- rollment in accredited library schools, a spring 1988 census indicating 3.7 percent blacks and 0.8 percent Hispanics is not en- couraging.15 · The scant offerings in the library lit- erature from 1982-86 would indicate that minority recruiting and reten- tion were not a high priority in the profession. PAST PRIORITIES It should be apparent that although li- brarianship may remain philosophically committed to increasing minority repre- sentation in the profession, the profession has given higher priority to other concerns over the past decade than to recruiting, nurturing, and retaining minority librari- ans. Academic librarianship, already at a . disadvantage in recruiting blacks to PWis, fails to appeal to targeted minorities as a desirable career. Further, librarianship has not pressured the library schools to compete aggressively with other profes- sional schools. The lack of advertised op- portunities for work study or grant/schol- arship support for study in librarianship and information science advertised in the Graduate Study Opportunity Pages (G- SOP) of the 1989 issues of The Black Colle- gian witnesses to this failure. Ultimately, academic librarianship appears to have fallen behind higher education in general in its efforts to recruit people of color. Conversely, higher education's lack of success with affirmative action may be evi- dence that recruiting to academic librarian- ship is but a small part of a larger societal problem. Indeed, according to Reginald Wilson, higher education fares quite poorly in recruiting people of color when it ". . . would at first glance, seem to be a propi- tious time for institutions to move toward racial and ethnic parity. The demographics are all favorable. Minorities of college- going age are increasing while the white eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-old popula- 516 College & Research Libraries tion is declining. The post-WWII 'baby- boom' generation is aging, and it is esti- mated that, of those in the professoriate, over 50 percent will be replaced by the end of the century. Despite these facts, the op- posite is happening, the presence of minor- ities in higher education is still declin- ing."16 THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY Beginning in the 1980s, however, the di- versity of cultures in our population has been increasingly seen to be valuable in its own right. Business especially has been quick to recognize the implications of a United States population projected by de- mographers to be composed in· the twenty-first century of 30 percent people of color. Further, business has recognized the positive effects of a diversified workforce in a pluralistic working envi- ronment, and individual corporations are beginning to express preferences for mul- tiethnic workforces whose compositions mirror the demographics of the country or their local environment. 17 In short, busi- ness has begun to realize increased pro- ductivity in terms of product quality, and the quality of work life within the multi- cultural business, which exceeds that of the monochrome corporation. Similarly, social work professionals have seen the need to address problems with cross-cultural sensitivity in contacts with clients from the increasingly multi- cultural society. For example, JohnS. Wo- darski has offered strategies for alleviating racism and encouraging cross-cultural sensitivity in social casework, while AI Swanson and John A. Brown found that racism originating with supervisors in agencies was a key element in the continu- ance of negative practices by casework- ers.18'19 They found that eliminating racism at the supervisory level could provide strong encouragement for positive changes in casework involving minority clients. In addition to serving as consul- tants to business, sociologists and social workers who find themselves working in the business community have served in training and personnel development posi- tions. For example, Irene Sidney Cohen described the effectiveness of social work- November 1990 ers setting up equal opportunity/affirma- tive action programs. 20 Human resource managers and training professionals have suggested methods of supervising people of color more effec- tively while enhancing equal opportunity compliance. John Hodge thinks that, "making a serious effort to help all em- ployees recognize and change discrimi- nating behavior will be the challenge for business for years to come. And training and development professionals will play a large role in making equal opportunity a reality. '' 21 This human relations approach to enhancing majority-minority under- standing in the workplace is well docu- mented in the personnel management and training literature. Both theoretical and practical methods for recruiting, accli- mating, and training the multiethnic workforce can be found in the writings of Paul G. Engel, Ken Macher, Charles W. Washington, Anthony J. Buonocore, and Dallas R. Crable. 22 Recently, business has validated its in- terest in the multicultural society by work- ing to improve affirmative action pro- grams which, in turn, enable corporations to realize the perceived benefits of the multiethnic corporation. American busi- ness realizes that it is in its own best inter- est to establish the multiethnic workforce to gain the advantages that the synergy of cultures adds to corporate competitive- ness in both the domestic and the interna- tional market for goods and services. To realize the potential of the multiethnic cor- poration, business has again allocated sig- nificant resources to developing true af- firmative action programs. Affirmative action strategies now often include in- struction in cross-cultural communication and cross-cultural sensitivity training for all employees, and minorities are given in- struction in corporate values and behav- ioral norms of the organization to which they have been recruited. Business' com- mitment of resources has spurred interest in the development of such training aids as Valuing Diversity, a three-part video program that deals with managing cul- tural differences, handling diversity at work, and communicating across cul- tures. This video is an excellent introduc- tion to the appreciation of diversity in the workplace as well as a good introduction to the methodologies of personnel man- agement.23 STATE OF AFFAIRS IN THE ACADEMIC COMMUNITY Obstacles to affirmative action and equal opportunity in academe are not lim- ited to small minority recruitment pools and unequal employment and promotion practices but include recurrent racism and incidences of racial tension. College cam- puses have experienced continuous tur- moil and racial discontent exemplified in reported incidents from virtually all areas of the country. For example, the president of the University of Delaware resigned in October 1988 amidst controversy over al- leged racist comments he made about blacks. The comments brought into seri- ous question his commitment to affirma- tive action. 24 Since the 1986-87 academic year, the National Institute Against Preju- dice & Violence has documented reported incidences of racial tension at 175 colleges in its newspaper clippings file. The racial climate on various campuses is best de- scribed by minorities as alienation or isola- tion. 25 Most whites, on the other hand, are ambivalent toward racial issues. Com- menting on one survey of midwestern col- lege freshmen, a director of student affairs found that ''students don't agree with negative stereotypes of minorities, but they don't disagree. They are bothered by racial tension, but they want it to go away. They don't feel they've done anything for which they need to make up."26 Librarianship, as reported in recent li- brary literature, like the academic commu- nity, is not immune to the ills of society. Elizabeth Martinez Smith wrote on the pervasive, omnipresent atmosphere of racism encountered in the profession, and Patrick A. Hall, in an article on his experi- ence as a black reference librarian at a PWI, describes much the same recep- tion.27'28 WHAT CAN ACADEMIC LIBRARIES DO? Though it is not the primary function of academic libraries to define the mul- Academic Libraries 517 tiethnic society or the methodologies the university might employ to educate for the pluralistic society, the libraries can be very influential in establishing and dem- onstrating a pluralistic environment from which the information needs of all campus cultures might be serviced. Academic li- braries in the PWis must take the initiative in creating a local multicultural environ- ment through displays, collections, staff, If one measure of success in recruit- ing minorities is taken to be enroll- ment in library schools, a spring 1988 census is not encouraging. and services. That is, academic libraries should provide an environment that pro- claims an appreciation of the contribu- tions of minority cultures in American so- ciety, thus stimulating and nurturing cross-cultural appreciation. Creating this necessary environment-an atmosphere that will enhance the image of the aca- demic libraries and academic librarianship for majority and minority patrons-will be very challenging in these times of tight budgets and scarce resources. Realizing this, librarians must give con- sideration to tactics that have been at- tempted and that have met with fair suc- cess in other issues of importance to librarianship: volunteer work, network- ing, lobbying, and activism. Successful techniques from other problems can influ- ence the course of affirmative action at the local level. This suggests nothing less than a grassroots, individual effort to initiate programming, networking, and personal recruitment to the cause of affirmative action in each academic library. To effect eventual demographic parity between the academic library staff and the population of the surrounding area of the parent insti- tution, academic librarians must begin to exert influence within libraries and parent institutions by taking a proactive stance, influencing the direction of, and effecting change toward affirmative action. It can- not usually be expected that academic li- braries in PWis, themselves parts of PWis 518 College & Research Libraries and serving the information needs of the PWis, will hold attitudes much different from their parent institutions. Academic libraries may lack multicultural atmo- spheres, and their library staff, like the surveyed freshmen, may not feel person- ally responsible for alleviating racial prob- lems on campus. Improving the pluralistic nature of the library and its services would certainly strengthen the base from which academic libraries reach out to minorities on cam- pus. Enhancing the library environment and improving the staff's cross-cultural sensitivity may have extraordinary influ- ence on the quality of services offered mi- nority clientele. Library efforts in creating the pluralistic library will undoubtedly be noted by minorities, thus making the li- brary both more desirable as an employer and as an information source. As reports of academic libraries being pluralistic and caring workplaces spread, recruitment and retention of minority staff in clerical, paraprofessional, and professional posi- tions should improve substantially. TOOLS Calling for volunteer work, networking, lobbying or other forms of activism rising from a commitment to affirmative action implies an expectation that academic li- brarians will become increasingly commit- ted to serving the pluralistic society of the 1990s. It must be realized, however, that changes in practice that move the profes- sion toward real improvement in affirma- tive action will probably originate with un- derfunded individuals or small groups in local academic libraries. The following four sections outline inexpensive tools, re- sources, and methods that might be used to initiate such change. Networking Several cumulative types of resources are of potential value to an academic li- brarian wishing to implement programs in valuing diversity. Often knowledgeable persons and organizations either on cam- pus or in the local community are inter- ested in improving minority representa- tion on campus or generally improving race relations. By networking with these November 1990 individuals or groups as well as with other concerned librarians, events can be orga- nized in which local experts may be en- gaged to assist with or facilitate library programming. Contacts with local per- sonnel and organizations can result in ad- ditional ideas for programming. The local network also serves as a support mecha- nism for the activist librarian. Though lo- cal experts in the network will not usually plan library programming, members of the faculty and staff in such areas as ethnic studies, minority affairs, communica- tions, or women's studies can be ex- tremely important in suggesting activities and resources for exploring pluralism in addition to participating in the programs themselves. At the national level, library organiza- tions such as REFORMA, the ALA Black Caucus, Office of Library Personnel Re- sources (OLPR), Office for Library Out- reach Services (OLOS), ACRL Recruit- ment of Underrepresented Minorities Task Force, and the Ethnic Materials and Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) are sources of current informa- tion, often providing programs or sug- gesting program ideas of interest for en- hancing cultural pluralism. Establishing and maintaining contact with such library organizations and individual members of these organizations can expand the net- work greatly with little additional expense to the academic library or the individual li- brarian. Library associations within a state may have caucuses, interest groups, or round tables that could be important for network expansion. In addition, nonli- brary organizations at the state and na- tional level, often with chapters on cam- pus or in the community, are deeply committed to ethnic pluralism. Literature Much can be gained from materials al- ready available in academic libraries. Cur- rent awareness materials include periodi- cals such as Equal Opportunity, Black Issues in Higher Education, The Affinnative Action Register, and The Chronicle of Higher Educa- tion. The business and sociological litera- ture continues to reflect strong interest in the multicultural workforce and American pluralistic society. Also, increasing inter- est in minority and cultural concerns can be found in the library literature. Exam- ples of programming and resource materi- als are available in such works as Minori- ties on Campus: A Handbook for Enhancing Diversity, offering practical advice and ex- amples of successful cultural diversity programs in academe; and Achieving Fac- ulty Diversity: A Sourcebook of Ideas and Suc- cess Stories, highlighting programs from colleges and universities that have been successful in hiring black, Latino, Native American, and Asian-American fac- . ulty. 29,30 Academic libraries should provide an environment that proclaims an ap- · predation of the contributions of mi- nority cultures in American society. Conferences Conferences throughout the year deal with various aspects of cultural pluralism and/or recruiting and retention of minori- ties. The (Oklahoma) "National Confer- ence on Racial and Ethnic Relations in American Higher Education,'' held annu- ally since 1988, is an attempt to bring scholars and campus leaders together to share, discuss, and debate ideas concern- ing enhancing the role and participation of people of color in higher education. Con- ferences called at regular intervals to ad- dress more focused aspects of pluralism in higher education include, for example, "The National Conference on Black Stu- dent Retention in Higher Education,'' and the annual conferences of The Association of Black Women in Higher Education. Other conferences such as ''From the Eurocentric University to the Multi- cultural University: The Faculty's Chal- lenge for the 21st Century," (1989) occur one time only to address an important as- pect of pluralism. Conferences offer opportunities for ex- panding personal networks with confer- . ence speakers and attendees in addition to updating knowledge on specific concerns Academic Libraries 519 of both pluralism and the recruiting and retention of minorities. The costs of the national conferences vary widely. Tele- conferencing and local/state conferences often offer economical alternatives to the more expensive national conferences, and some, like ALA preconferences, may pro- vide economies of convenience. Local Program Resources Local programs, like conferences, vary widely in cost. They range from full work- shops with professional facilitators/tea- chers, . to local film series on cultural rela- tions, with or without volunteer facilita- tors. Resources may be chosen to address particular aspects of cultural pluralism or to be of interest to targeted groups. Many in- expensive videos suitable for inclusion in local programming can be located via the personal network of organizations and in- dividuals suggested earlier. Among videos that are available either at no cost or at low cost within the academic community are Valuing Diversity, mentioned earlier, and Racism 101, a program from the PBS Front- line series that provides a chilling insight into racism on campus through early 1988.31 Recommendations from networkers can provide additional titles for materials suitable for local programs, and catalogs of film/video libraries or rental lists are often annotated and indexed by subject. In gen- eral, videos and films will provide inexpen- sive programming resources. They are nonthreatening, readily available, and adaptable to many consciousness-raising scenarios. Success in local programming that en- deavors both to enhance the pluralistic na- ture of the library environment and to im- prove the cultural relations skills of library staff is not directly related to the size of the budget allocated to affirmative action. Shortfalls in dollars can be made up in en- ergies and commitment by individual li- brarians and the networks they have cre- ated. Inexpensive programming still can be excellent. Waiting for a bigger budget may not necessarily guarantee academic libraries substantial success at affirmative action or in meeting the needs of a multi- cultural society. 520 College & Research Libraries COMMITMENT, PROGRESS, PATIENCE Librarianship' s intellectual commit- ment to affirmative action may well serve l~brary staff in terms of obtaining release tune from normal duties to pursue affir- mative action aims. Even with release time, however, the effort and time com- mitment necessary to remain informed and keep in contact with those individuals and groups with which a librarian might be networking is considerable. It is re- sponsible to assume that burnout is a dis- tinct possibility and that results will not be apparent overnight. Higher education has been particularly slow in effecting affirma- tive action change. Principles advanced by Howard L. Fromkin and John J. Sherwood in 1974, for example, may still be used to steer administrators toward more racially balanced faculty and staff. 32 Additionally, prescriptions for eliminating racism ad- vanced by Judy Katz in White Awareness are as valid today as they were in 1978 when the work was first published. 33 Ten years later, the continuing need to address racism was again underlined in Eliminat- ing Racism: Profiles in Controversy. 34 Internal programs can significantly in- fluence creation of a pluralistic environ- ment in the library and can serve to aug- ment outreach to minorities in the a.cademic community. Programming ini- tiated by the University of Michigan Li- braries in the spring of 1988 continues to develop and provides a convenient model of what can be accomplished. 35 The pro- gram can be described as a vision for en- hancing race relations on campus, fueled by volunteers, given impetus and support by a committed library administration, and funded chiefly by release time from scheduled library duties . UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN In conjunction with a library-sponsored gener~ meeting, "Overcoming Racism: Explormg the Value of Diversity," called . to address the problem of institutional rae- is~ at the University of Michigan in 1988, thrrteen volunteers from various job cate- gories were trained as workshop facilita- tors. Following a series of workshops, November 1990 these facilitators served as discussion leaders for groups continuing to probe topics related to diversity. A continuing group, the Library's Diversity TaskForce, chiefly comprised of volunteers from the workshop facilitators or discussion groups continues to meet twice monthly to discuss further programming in the in- terest of improving diversity within the li- braries. Efforts in creating the pluralistic library will undoubtedly be noted by minorities, thus making the library more desirable as an employer and as an information source. The Diversity Task Force has sponsored film series and discussions centered on the experiences of blacks, Hispanics, and other ethnic groups in the United States. A day-long workshop was subsequently held to evaluate the Library's progress to- ward diversity and the continuing role of the Task Force in promoting pluralism. The Task Force has continued to coordi- nate diversity activities in the Libraries. Many of the activities coordinated by the Task Force have been efforts in response to suggestions or concerns of library staff expressed in the continuing discussion groups. Continuous support by Library admin- istration was evidenced throughout diver- sity programming and planning efforts at Michigan from its accommodation of scheduling conflicts and the generous al- lowance of release time for Task Force members and for other library staff partici- pating in diversity activities. As a result in part from emphasizing the value of diver- sity and taking steps to enhance diversity in the workplace, recruitment and reten- tion of minority staff in the University of Michigan Libraries has improved mark- edly. The percentage of minority profes- . sionallibrarians at Michigan in late 1988 at 21.5 percent was more than double the 9.39 percent reported for general ARL li- braries reported by the Association of Re- search Libraries in its 1987 Annual Salary Survey. 36 SUMMARY Although the employment potential for minority professionals in librarianship warrants optimism, insufficient opportu- nities have been provided and inadequate encouragement given so far to people of color, resulting in an inadequate represen- tation in academic libraries. The profes- sion continues to be concerned over the shortage of librarians of color while it be- comes ever more aware of the need to adapt library services to an increasingly pluralistic American society in a multi- diverse world. 37 While academic librarianship is intellec- tually and morally committed to affirma- tive action, giant steps must be taken to in- sure that decreases in the numbers of academic librarians of color not continue into the 1990s. Libraries in the PWis, like their parent institutions, continue to em- phasize recruitment in terms of the avail- ability of minorities in the employment pool. However, so far, the PWis have re- frained from defining the role by which they might enhance the creation of a plu- ralistic society on campus. The PWis have neither developed pluralism on campus nor provided the methodology for educat- ing a multicultural society. Not surpris- ingly, racial conflicts and tensions recur in the PWis. Past practice in affirmative action, in- cluding calls for special minority recruit- ment to librarianship and providing schol- arships and internships for graduate information study, routinely has been in- adequate for improving the representa- tion of people of color in academic librari- anship. At present, academic librarians may be more acutely aware of shrinking budgets and may be more sensitive to the minority representation in a given em- ployment pool than to the underrepresen- tation of people of color in academic librar- ianship. To change academic librarianship to meet the needs of a pluralistic society, attitudes must be transformed, services adapted, the environment altered, and openness and acceptance adopted. The academic library itself must be changed. Academic Libraries 521 The most obvious potential agents for such change are committed academic li- brarians. The literature reflects continuing con- cern with improving the quality of the in- terface of library services with minority cli- ents and the potential for recruiting from underrepresented groups for library posi- tions. Library literature reflects calls for improving communication between peo- ple of color and the white majority whether between colleagues or between client and reference librarian. 38 The litera- ture also reports explorations of the role of libraries in the future pluralistic society. In 1988 for example, the California Library Association titled its 90th annual meeting, "Libraries: Uniting Cultures Through Knowledge.''39 The climate in the profes- sion appears generally to be open to both designing services for a pluralistic Ameri- can society and to improving minority representation in the profession. And, fol- lowing some success in improving the sta- tus of women and some advancement to- ward pay equity, librarianship's social conscience may now include increased emphasis on minority recruitment andre- tention, and valuing diversity in the aca- demic library. Academic librarians committed to changing both the atmosphere in, and mi- nority perceptions of, information organi- zations in the PWis are easily the most im- portant resources available which, through individual effort, networking, and cooperative programming, may en- able the profession to meet the challenges of an increasingly pluralistic American so- ciety. Once academic librarians succeed in reestablishing affirmative action as a pri- mary goal of the profession, and validate commitment to a diverse society at the lo- cal level, the potential for minority recruit- ment to academic librarianship will be vastly improved. Academic librarianship will then be an attractive career choice for people of color and not, as it appears now, a career of frustration, low status, and lim- ited potential for success. Academic librar- . ianship needs to be vibrant and vital in its pluralism, not low profile. The profession needs to be reaching out to minorities and celebrating cultural diversity, not uncon- 522 College & Research Libraries November 1990 sciously perpetuating the culturally neu- tral, equal education opportunity atmo- sphere that is now pervasive in the PWis. Individual librarians can make it happen in the 1990s beginning now. REFERENCES AND NOTES 1. Elizabeth M. Dickinson, "Personnel and Employment: Affirmative Action," in ALA Yearbook 1976 (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1976), p.258. 2. E. J. Josey, "Can Library Affirmative Action Succeed?" Library Journal100:30-31 Oan. 1975). 3. Dickinson, "Personnel and Employment," p.258. 4. Yolanda}. Cuesta, "Personnel and Employment: Affirmative Action," in ALA Yearbook 1981 (Chi- cago: American Library Assn., 1981), p.218. 5. Elizabeth M. Dickinson, "Is Affirmative Action Dead?" in ALA Yearbook 1982 (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1982), p.209-10. 6. Carol Learmont, ''Personnel and Employment: Recruitment and Selection,'' in ALA Yearbook 1982 (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1982), p.210. 7. American Library Association, Office of Library Personnel Resources, Academic and Public Librari- ans: Data by Race, Ethnicity and Sex (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1986), p.7. 8. Lorene B. Brown, "A Crisis in Librarianship: The Decline in the Number of Minorities Entering the Profession Since 1979" (paper delivered at the Black Caucus of the American Library Associa- tion Meeting, Chicago, Jan. 19, 1986). 9. American Library Association, President's Committee on Library Services to Minorities, Equity at Issue: Library Service to the Nation's Four Major Minority Groups, 1985-86 (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1986), p.13. 10. E. J. Josey and Marva L. DeLoach, "Library Services to Ethnic Communities," Ethnic Forum 7:17-35 (1987). 11. William E. Moen and Kathleen M. Heim, "The Class of 1988: Librarians for the New Millenium," American Libraries 19:858-60 (Nov. 1988). 12. American Library Association, Office of Library Personnel Resources, The Racial, Ethnic, and Sexual Composition of Library Staff in Academic and Public Libraries (Chicago: American Library Assn., 1981). 13. ALA Office of Library Personnel Resources, Academic and Public Librarians, p.23. 14. U.S. Bureau of the Census, Statistical Abstract of the United States: 1988 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. G. P. 0., 1987). 15. Moen and Heim, "The Class of 1988," p.858-60. 16. Reginald Wilson, ''Recruitment & Retention of Minority Faculty and Staff,'' AAHE Bulletin 39, no.6:12 (Feb. 1987). 17. John P. Fernandez, Racism and Sexism in Corporate Life: Changing Values in American Business (Lex- ington, Mass.: Lexington Books, 1981). 18. JohnS. Wodarski, "Strategies for the Alleviation of Institutional Racism in Services Offered by Social Work Agencies," Journal of Social Work 4, no.1:51-61 (Spring 1977). 19. Al Swanson and John A. Brown, ''Racism, Supervision, and Organizational Environment,'' Ad- ministration in Social Work 5, no.2:59-68 (Summer 1981). 20. Irene Sidney Cohen, "Devising Ways to Implement Affirmative Action Goals," Practice Digest 3, no.1:26-28 (1980). 21. John Hodge, "Common-Sensical Approach to Supervising Minorities," Supervisory Management 28, no.29:24-27 (Sept. 1983). 22. Paul G. Engel, ''Helping Minorities, Corporations Mesh,'' Industry Week 223, no.4:22-28 (Nov. 12, 1984); Ken Macher, "The Politics of Organizations," Personnel Journal65, no.2:80-84 (Feb. 1986); Charles W. Washington, "Acculturation of Minorities in Large Organizations," The Bureaucrat 16:29-34 (Spring 1987); Anthony J. Buonocore and Dallas R. Crable, ''Equal Opportunity: An In- complete Evolution," Personnel Journal65, no.8:32-35 (Aug. 1986), are among many recent articles discussing aspects of minority recruitment and orientation. 23. Valuing Diversity (San Francisco: Copeland Griggs Productions, 1988) 3 videotapes, 30 min. ea. 24. ''Embattled President at U. of Delaware Quits After 16 Months on the Job,'' The Chronicle of Higher Education 35, no.10:A11, A14 (Nov. 2, 1988). 25. Denise K. Magner, "Blacks and Whites on the Campuses: Behind Ugly Racist Incidents, Student Isolation and Insensitivity," The Chronicle of Higher Education 35, no.33:A28 (April26, 1989). 26. Ibid., p.A29. Academic Libraries 523 27. Elizabeth Martinez Smith, "Racism: It Is Always There," Library Journal113, no.18:35-39 (Nov. 1, 1988). 28. Patrick A. Hall, "Yassuh! I's the Reference Librarian!" American Libraries 19:900-01 (Nov. 1988). 29. Madeleine F. Green, ed., Minorities on Campus: A Handbook for Enhancing Diversity (Washington: American Council on Education, 1989). 30. Jeri Spann, Achieving Faculty Diversity: A Sourcebook of Ideas and Success Stories (Madison, Wis.: Of- fice of Equal Opportunity Programs and Policy Studies, University of Wisconsin System, 1988). 31. Racism 101 is but one example of programs from public and commercial television that may be used as videos for local programming and quite often relevant videos are already available on campus, having been obtained as curriculum support materials. 32. Howard L. Fromkin and John J. Sherwood, eds., Integrating the Organization (New York: Free Press, 1974). 33. Judy H. Katz, White Awareness: Handbook for Anti-Racism Training (Norman, Okla.: University of Oklahoma Press, 1978). 34. Phyllis A. Katz and Dalmas A. Taylor, eds., Eliminating Racism: Profiles in Controversy (New York: Plenum Press, 1988). 35. Robert M. Warner, Point of Intersection: The University Library and the Pluralistic Campus Community (Ann Arbor, Mich.: University of Michigan Library, 1988). 36. Ibid., p.4. 37. L. C. }olivet, "Preparation of Librarians to Serve a Multicultural World," WLW Journal12:3-6 (Summer 1988). 38. R. Errol Lam, "The Reference Interview: Some Intercultural Considerations," RQ 27:390-95 (Spring 1988). 39. Michael Gorman, "Exhilarating Diversity, Uncertain Finances," American Libraries 20:81-85 Oan. 1989). . R ~D - . c~ .-. .. Your life line. BIOSIS Connection• Keeping yow finger on the pulse of biological and blomeclcal reeeM:h Information Is as easy as preulng a bulan. 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