Introduction
Articulate the importance of designing programs and services supportive of diversity, inclusion, and equity for clientele and employees.
There is incredible variety in the human experience. And as information professionals, it is imperative that one acts to reflect this variety in their information institution. This can manifest in a multitude of ways: from developing a varied and representative book collection, to creating English-alternative programming and onward. There are three different principles that are foundational to achieving this goal.
Definitions:
Diversity: the principle of diversity is the value of understanding and appreciating the distinct realities that different people encounter due to a slew of different factors. While contrasting perspectives can cause friction, they can also be an incredible opportunity to problem-solve and develop empathetic understanding.
Inclusion: inclusion is the practice of consciously adopting and accepting peoples and ideas that are different than one’s own. It is a concept that is antithetical to tribalism, as it directly challenges the concept of “us versus them”.
Equity: whereas equality is the practice of treating everyone the same regardless of their circumstances, equity is the policy of taking circumstances into account so that people can have what they need to be equal. Equality views “being equal” or “fairness” as part of the process. Equity views these things as the goal.
This is a post from my Reference Services forum discussion on diversity. In my post, I describe at length the importance of considering genre when creating or amending a collection to be more diverse. The reason for this is because it has been my personal experience that certain populations, such as Native Americans, be subject to a phenomenon that I call “genre pigeonholing”. That is to say, that while they may be represented in library collections, they are often represented solely in the past tense; i.e. in historical or anthropological collections or genres. This may be very disheartening for someone of that population group, as it can perpetuate the misconception that a people or culture is “dead” when it is not. Are there contemporary authors in the collection? Is there fiction? What is the subject matter about? Is there material published by that population present? I believe that to truly support diversity and inclusion amongst these kinds of populations in a library, one must consider how they are represented on multiple levels.
In my Web Accessibility course, I collaborated with a contact at King’s College to analyze and provide feedback for increasing student accessibility prior to the website’s reconstruction the following fall semester. The original website was built by and for educational professionals, which encouraged faculty engagement at the cost of alienating potential users such as ESL students, older students, and first-time college attendees. By endeavoring to make the website more accessible to different kinds of student patrons, (college here) can become more equitable towards the student population as a whole and encourage further diversity in the future.
Application and Conclusion
Professional Experience:
As part of my work at Salt Lake Community College’s Library Department, I was tasked with creating a new set of layout maps for all four of the library branches. Prior to this, the only maps available for patron direction were direct copies of the buildings’ blueprints. These were very difficult to interpret, had faint fonts that were barely legible, and gave no indication of where collections or services were located.
The goal of this project was twofold: to create a set of maps that were easily understandable by those with visual difficulties, and to create a Spanish-language version of those same maps for SLCC’s ESL population. These maps were made by compiling the original blueprints with photographs of each location, and then using Adobe InDesign to create vector outlines for each map area. I then filled out each map with their respective collections, points of service, and amenities by consulting supervisors for each location. Once the English versions of the maps were complete, a Spanish version was made by collaborating with Spanish-speaking members of the staff.
As I continue to work in libraries and information science as a whole, I will continue to ensure that diversity, inclusion, and equity remain present regardless of the project type or location.