BCALA reached out to the American Library Association’s three candidates for ALA president in the 2017 election. The following is a question & answer post wherein the questions that were asked of the candidates are presented, followed by each of their responses. BCALA as an organization usually does not endorse specific ALA presidential candidates and will not for this election, though individual members of BCALA may endorse candidates. ALA elections will open on March 13 and close on April 5. For more information on ALA elections, including candidate bios and links to the candidates’ web sites, visit: http://www.ala.org/aboutala/governance/alaelection .
BCALA: What is your perspective on the continued work of inclusion and diversity within ALA?
As ALA President, I will focus on pillars reflecting ALA’s Strategic Plan including equity, diversity and inclusion. My Vision for the Association: ALA will embed values of equity, diversity and inclusion in our association’s programs and services which in turn will impact our profession at large, services provided by libraries, communities, and generations of diverse individuals across our nation.
Lines of Action: ALA will facilitate joint work among ALA units to promote equity, diversity and inclusion in our profession and association. ALA will work more closely with BCALA and all ALA’s ethnic affiliates to support libraries and library workers to continue welcoming all members of our communities to the library, and to provide access to information for all. Now more than ever, it is important that we work together to advocate for legislation and policies that benefit all libraries and their funding. We will continue promoting intellectual freedom, human rights, and our core belief that libraries are essential to democracy. In the midst of the challenges our association and nation face, I am confident that Together, we can succeed!
I absolutely support the recommendations from the ALA’s Task Force on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion and will focus on implementing them to encourage all offices, divisions, and round tables of ALA to review their goals, strategies and outcomes for diversity and inclusion periodically. Develop a strategy to mentor new members and ensure inclusion of more members from underrepresented groups in committees, task forces, and association activities. Pursue increasing funding opportunities to support participation at ALA conferences and meetings. Explore ways to increase continuing education for ALA members in the areas of diverse groups and building connections between people who are not like themselves. Together, we can bring change!
We have to do more. It is disturbing that we haven’t made more strides in this area even though we have targeted diversity and inclusion for many years. I was pleased to read the report from the Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion which has resulted in an implementation working group that can help the units at ALA actually accomplish their recommendations. I am anxiously awaiting the implementation. It seems to me that we’ve come to the place in the association that recognizes doing “more of the same” hasn’t made significant strides. A personal goal would be that our profession reflects our constituents. One of the things that we need to change is the idea that “they” need to recruit more people of color to the profession and to the association. We need to change that to “I” or “we” need to do that work. It needs to be all of us, not just persons of color. As a school librarian, I meet children from all races. I need to talk to those students about what it means to be a school librarian. Public librarians need to recruit their patrons; academic librarians need to recruit their students. We need to be more forward in sharing what we feel are the benefits of our profession.
We have come a long way, but we have a long way to go.
You can see the growing engagement with equity, diversity, and inclusion issues across the Association going back years, and this culminated in the recent work of the EDI Task Force and Working Group. The Task Force report identified a number of strategic and operational changes that could be pursued to better support EDI initiatives (and diverse member communities) across the Association, and we are already seeing these being taken up. At the ALA level, we saw EDI elevated to the status of a strategic initiative for the Association (something I’ll come back to in another answer), and we are seeing ALA units move in the same direction, e.g., the recent announcement that the Public Library Association has established an EDI Task Force at the division level. My home division, ACRL, has had a Diversity Committee for some time, articulated “Cultural Competency Standards for Academic Libraries” in 2012, and established a “Diversity Alliance” to promote recruitment and retention of professionals of color into academic libraries in 2016. All of these actions at the division and Association levels suggest that ALA is actively working to establish an enduring and sustainable framework for equity, diversity, and inclusion in the Association and in the field. This will be increasingly important in the coming years as changes to federal policies have an impact on public education, access to enrichment opportunities for K-12 students of color, access to financial support for students and families from traditionally under-represented communities, and access to federal funds that have supported scholarship programs at the M.A. and Ph.D. levels in Library and Information Science. As challenges to equitable access to information and technology grow under the current Administration, it will be increasingly important for national associations like ALA to establish leadership positions supportive of equity, diversity, and inclusion, and to work with other associations, state governments, and institutions of higher education to provide the tools that librarians need to implement policies, programs, and priorities that reflect our core commitments to diversity, inclusive democracy, and social justice.
BCALA: With a smaller footprint as a goal for ALA conferences, what would that mean for inclusion of the diverse professional library associations in term of participation for board meetings? Membership meetings? Programs?
Loida Garcia-Febo:
Providing an ALA conference including a robust schedule of programs and meetings from diverse professional library association is of utmost importance for the membership and our profession. As ALA President, I will work together with BCALA and diverse professional library associations to ensure inclusion of their meetings and programs. ALA must continue providing space and opportunities, online and in-person, for our colleagues to carry out the work they do to benefit our profession and our communities. Additionally, I will work towards increasing funding to support conference attendance and participation of diverse professionals including new librarians. I will seek that ALA’s commitment to diversity impacts actions for inclusion of diverse professional library associations.
Terri Grief:
Change is always difficult but reducing the number of meeting rooms and programs will have a significant impact on the cost of the meetings. I am hopeful that the programming will be more meaningful and richer and that the task force recommends and selects speakers that are diverse. Some of us may have to make choices that are difficult. If we can reduce the costs of attending, however, more people may attend.
Scott Walter:
This was a key concern that we heard at Midwinter in regard to the conference reorganization proposal, and I think that leadership heard the call to balance the need for efficiencies with the need for inclusive programming. Among the proposals I heard for moving forward in a manner that would allow for maximum benefit for members in terms of the use of physical space at conference included: a) an inclusive approach to review and acceptance of programs for presentation; b) meaningful incentives for units to collaborate across ALA in program development (e.g., across divisions, among divisions and affiliates, etc.); and c) greater use across the Association of digital platforms to allow for meetings that do not require face-to-face collaboration to occur outside the conference framework, thus maximizing the use of physical space for programs that have their greatest impact for members in person. Not necessarily part of the conference reorganization proposal, but also important, was the call for ALA to (finally) get serious about virtual participation, digital access to programs, etc., and to recognize the impact on member engagement of constrained travel budgets, family commitments, etc. I have seen these approaches adopted successfully in ACRL over the past few years, especially in regard to moving routine business meetings to conference call and video conference formats. If proposals such as these are adopted strategically and comprehensively, and diverse units are given the support and incentives needed to move to this new planning format, I have every reason to believe they will be successful.
I also believe the ethnic affiliates will be in a stronger position to develop and deliver programming at conference due to two things that happened at Midwinter: 1) the elevation of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion to the level of a strategic initiative of the Association; and, 2) the successful use of the Town Hall format to facilitate the much-needed discussion of professional values and the ways in which they must guide Association leadership and decision-making. The approval of EDI as a strategic initiative should give both the affiliates and complementary units within divisions and round tables easier access to resources for programming, professional development, and support for members helping us move forward on EDI issues. This should also establish a sustainable approach to identifying and supporting leadership of these efforts, and leadership like this is precisely what we need to ensure ongoing access to conference program space. The successful Town Hall demonstrated how conference time and space can be employed to support broad participation in an issue of importance across the Association. The key question for what this experience tells us about finding space at conference for inclusive and meaningful conversations will be what happens next, i.e., will ALA leadership demonstrate that it has listened to the people who came to the Town Hall, taken the criticism to heart, and adjusted its approach in response? If so, I think the Town Hall can provide another high-level opportunity for programming and discussions close to the hearts of the ethnic affiliates.
BCALA: What is your personal and professional support for JCLC (Joint Conference of Librarians of Color)?
Loida Garcia-Febo:
The unity I saw during the first JCLC conference in 2006 in Dallas was tremendously powerful. It impacted my life so much that it inspired me, as REFORMA Northeast President at the time, to establish an annual event, the “Joint Mini Conference,” in partnership with AILA, APALA, BCALA and CALA chapters in the Northeast. This event seeks to support librarians of color while fostering dialogue about diversity, equity and inclusion. The conference has grown to include LIS students, professors, and library and information workers from across the nation. As ALA President, I would love to work with JCLC to look at ways of modeling regional events after the JCLC conference and the Joint Mini Conference.
I have collaborated closely with JCLC for many years by creating its first Facebook page as a member of one its earliest Marketing and Communications committees, and by attending and speaking at the JCLC conferences in Dallas and Kansas City. Personally, it is a joy to attend and contribute to JCLC’s fundraising efforts including events at the ALA Conferences. We need to join and support JCLC to continue its work advocating and addressing the needs of ethnic affiliates and librarians of color.
As a member of the ALA Executive Board, I have made it my priority to attend JCLC Board Meetings during the ALA conferences to listen to concerns, continue conversations, and share news from ALA. I was very proud to vote ‘Yes’ to JCLC becoming an ALA Affiliate.
Terri Grief:
I was on the AASL board when the first JCLC was held in Dallas. As a board, we funded a school librarian to present at the conference. I notified a school librarian in Lexington who was an active member and whose school is ethnically diverse. I was thrilled when she was selected and she told me that her experience was one of the best of her professional career. I am excited to see that the ethnic caucuses have formed the non-profit group to continue this important work.
Scott Walter:
The JCLC “purpose statement,” as reported by ALA in 2015, was: “To promote librarianship within communities of color, support literacy and the preservation of history and cultural heritage, collaborate on common issues, and to host the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color every four to five years.” I have a long-time commitment to these goals, although my direct work with JCLC and its affiliates has been limited.
For example, I have collaborated for over a decade with multicultural student services programs, cultural centers, and critical ethnic studies programs both to promote the use of diverse library collections, and to introduce students of color to professional opportunities in Library and Information Science. This work actually began before I became a librarian, when I was a teacher educator and LIS student at Indiana University, where I worked with student teachers in the Navajo Nation and with first-generation college students from African-American and Hispanic communities. I continued my work with native students and teachers through the Washington State University College of Education, where I served both as education librarian and as a faculty member, and with other students taking part in the WSU Future Teachers of Color program. It was also at WSU where I began my long-time engagement with multicultural student services, which continued at Illinois and, now, at DePaul. Given DePaul’s highly diverse student body, I have been able to collaborate with our Office of Multicultural Student Success on its “Multicultural Study Jams,” and with the Career Center on programs designed to introduce students of color to graduate and professional opportunities in our field.
My time in Chicago has also given me much greater experience in terms of the preservation of cultural heritage materials. I worked for years as an education librarian building diverse academic, curriculum, and children’s literature collections, but it has been in Chicago where I’ve been able to focus on special collections, community collections, and community engagement to support preservation of local materials. Our DePaul special collections include important community collections reflecting our diverse urban history, including our Lincoln Park and Pilsen neighborhood collections, and collections drawn from grassroots community groups. As a leader in Chicago Collections, I have been able to promote greater discovery, access, and use of diverse collections, engagement with teachers and students in our diverse K-12 schools, and collaboration with our partners in the Black Metropolis Research Consortium.
Finally, I have been personally engaged, and supportive of, initiatives at my libraries to support diversity in recruitment for professional positions, and to promote continuing professional development and leadership opportunities for colleagues of color. At different times, I have supported diversity initiatives in student employee recruitment, para-professional staff pursuing the MLS degree, campus-level programs designed to promote recruitment and success of faculty members of color, and have served as a Career Coach in the ARL Leadership & Career Development Program.
BCALA: How do you envision the ALA working more closely with the Ethnic Affiliates? In what specific ways could there be greater collaboration?
Loida Garcia-Febo:
As ALA President, I will seek to build on the work done by all of us to increase the involvement of ethnically diverse colleagues and follow lines of action fostering inclusion. I am very proud of my lifelong collaboration with Ethnic Affiliates and will build on that work. For instance, as an active member of all the Ethnic Affiliates, I coordinate with teams to develop initiatives that impact members from the Affiliates such as “Services to Immigrants & Access to Information: Taking action,” a free webinar presented by REFORMA in partnership with the ALA Office for Diversity, ALA Washington Office, and the ALA Office for Library Advocacy. The event was recorded and is available to all. I will seek to present more educational events like this one featuring different topics in collaboration with the Ethnic Affiliates.
I am proud to have lead the development of a Leadership Video Series part of Molly Raphael’s Presidential Initiative, Empowering Diverse Voices which featured ALA leaders from diverse groups. This is an initiative we can expand together with the Ethnic Affiliates.
As REFORMA President, I coordinated an online free training for new leaders which was presented in partnership with ALA. The event was recorded and the link was shared with the Affiliates to reach colleagues from all over the nation. This is a model to support and grow leaders that we can enrich with the collaboration of Ethnic Affiliates.
I will work with the Ethnic Affiliates, JCLC, ODLOS and the ALA Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Implementation Working Group. They bring valuable expertise needed to implement recommendations from the ALA Task Force on Equity, Diversity and Inclusion in the areas of recruitment and retention, promotion of librarianship, advocacy, continuing education, better salaries and work conditions and more opportunities to thrive in our careers and as leaders. This is also key to increase representation of ethnically diverse individuals in the ranks of librarians. Together, we can bring change!
Terri Grief:
Strengthening relationships is one of my core messages for my presidency. All librarians have the same values, no matter the position, race, or ethnic background and I would focus on how we can support one another. As a school librarian, I have a close connection to the academic world, realizing that my seniors are their freshmen. I always think of Jim Rettig’s “Library eco-system” and it doesn’t just go across types of libraries and librarians.
One of the ideas that I would like to promote is that we all need to be more active participants in the recruiting process. I would reach out to each ethnic caucus to leverage their influence in the universities in their areas. I would create a task force that would develop a plan for nationwide recruiting efforts. I know there are members who would volunteer to attend college fairs across the nation. A task force could construct a recruiting campaign that could be easily replicated which would encourage students to consider librarianship as a profession, using our social media connections. We could reach out to the Historically Black Colleges and University and partner with the Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities, for example.
I’d also like to see the Ethnic Affiliates have programming that reaches all of us who serve diverse populations to help in this contentious political climate. Libraries are a safe haven and we have to band together, now more than ever, to provide services to our students and our communities. The Ethnic Affiliates should be leaders for all of us.
Scott Walter:
As a decentralized association, ALA benefits from a structure that allows support for EDI initiatives to bloom at many levels, e.g., Big ALA, ethnic affiliates, divisions, round tables, chapters, etc. This ensures that people have an opportunity to contribute to, or champion, efforts in the ALA “space” that they see as most meaningful at the individual level, but it also means that efforts undertaken in one area of the Association may not gain the recognition, reach, and impact that they might. As I said earlier, I am hopeful that the next steps coming from ALA recognizing EDI as a strategic initiative will allow us to better coordinate individual initiatives and learn, across the Association, from successful programs and best practices.
One specific way in which greater collaboration is possible is in the area of conference programming noted above. Bringing the expertise housed in divisions and round tables together with the core commitments to EDI housed in the affiliates should allow for the development of high-quality professional development programs that will truly reflect the Association-wide efforts that have taken place in recent years.
Supporting EDI efforts at the state and local levels is another specific opportunity for collaboration, especially through more coordinated work with EDI initiatives spearheaded by Chapters, and even by student chapters housed in LIS programs. Similarly, there are opportunities for ALA and the affiliates to work together through the Office of Accreditation and its partners in the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) to promote further attention to EDI issues in pre-professional and continuing education courses offered through LIS programs, and to address the “pipeline” issue that is the focus of your final question.
BCALA: Data from ALA shows that the number – and percent – of librarians from traditionally underrepresented groups (TUG) has declined over the past 10 years. We recognize that there are few librarian positions now, but to what might you attribute the sharper decline in the number of TUG librarians, and what role should ALA play in trying to reverse that trend?
Loida Garcia-Febo:
As a librarian and as a person of color, I am deeply concerned about this situation. Our profession ought to mirror the populations we serve and our diverse communities. Looking at the most recent update of Diversity Counts (2012), this ALA study of gender, race, and age in the library profession, based on data from the US Census and IMLS, showed that about 14% of the total number of credentialed librarians come from different ethnic groups. This clearly indicates that we must continue working together towards our goal of increasing the diversity of the library workforce.
Recruitment and retention are among my biggest concerns. We have to consistently reach out to high schools and undergraduate programs to promote librarianship. I am committed to follow recommendations from ALA’s Task Force on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion and expand marketing to include promotion of librarians and library workers. This can greatly increase our understanding and value of the profession. At the same time, we must work together to understand why individuals may join our profession and why they may leave. I am certainly committed to advocate for better salaries and work conditions that would help us to retain librarians and library workers.
I believe in supporting the Spectrum Program. I have been inspired to build on the work of the Office for Diversity and the Spectrum Program to dedicate resources to increase fundraising to award more scholarships to assist individuals from different ethnic groups interested in obtaining a graduate degree and leadership positions within the profession and our organization. We must continue to provide opportunities to recruit and educate librarians from different ethnic groups. These grants can be a tremendous help for individuals to complete their library school.
Terri Grief:
I think I answered that in the questions above but I will restate that we all have to take responsibility as members. We can’t expect the ALA Office for Diversity, Literacy, and Outreach Services to carry this. Each division and unit of the association has to take responsibility.
I follow a group on Twitter called #WeNeedDiverseBooks that is a group of authors promoting books with diverse characters. A recent tweet from this group was a picture that says “Representation Matters Membership Program” and has the tag line as “Are you a college student, recent grad, or booklover of color interested in starting a career in publishing?” and this same idea could be tweaked for our profession. Using social media would be cost effective and also reach a wide audience.
I’d also like to work with public librarians who serve diverse communities in this same way. Developing a brochure, bookmark or other media that has the same message as above would be more costly than using social media but I am sure we could find funding sources to accomplish this.
Another idea would be to enlist multicultural authors to become spokespeople for recruitment, especially in high schools. Targeting high school students has not been done, since the profession is an advanced degree but getting the information out to these students could be a powerful step.
Scott Walter:
I noted the “pipeline” issue earlier, and there is a crisis in LIS education right now, with enrollments in ALA-accredited programs down significantly over the past several years. When you combine the overall decline in LIS program enrollment with the broader decline in support available for graduate study, e.g., scholarships, graduate assistantships, etc., you have a situation that is not conducive to any effort designed to recruit new students into the field from traditionally under-represented groups. If you add to this situation the common requirement for field experience, often unpaid (and, sometimes, not even generating credit accepted toward completion of core degree requirements), in order to be successful in the search for a first, professional position, you have a situation that presents significant obstacles to recruiting students of color into LIS programs, into ALA-accredited degrees, and, ultimately, into professional positions. ALA and its divisions have undertaken great efforts to provide support for students wishing to come into the field from traditionally underrepresented groups, and LIS programs have made the required credential increasingly accessible through online education programs that don’t require residency on campus, but the data are clear that the overall success of these efforts in diversifying the profession has been limited.
In addition to the issue of recruitment (and what ALA might do in terms of sharing best practices with libraries looking to engage student employees or other students at the K-12 or college level early on with the idea of joining the profession), there is the issue of retention and providing opportunities for TUG libraries to be engaged and successful in the profession. I have been involved in many “diversity hiring initiatives” on campus that were focused on recruiting TUG faculty and professionals (including librarians), but have been disappointed by how many appear to deemed “successful” once a recruitment has occurred, and have not followed up to look at the issues of long-term retention and success. These are aspects of the effort to recruit more professionals of color into librarianship that ALA should also address so that we have a better picture of a complete picture of the “professional education – hire – retention – success” cycle for students and new professionals from traditionally underrepresented groups.
In the end, we need for students of color to be introduced to librarianship as a meaningful profession to pursue, for new professionals of color to be recruited through HR programs that do not systematically advantage one group of applicants over another, for our organizations to demonstrate their openness to a diverse staff and user community through attention to cultural competency and core commitments to equity, diversity, and inclusion, and for professional associations (at all levels) to make similar commitments and to pursue inclusive policies in regard to providing access to professional development and leadership opportunities. None of these efforts will address some of the systematic and structural challenges currently facing higher education, as a whole, and many professional education programs (including LIS), in particular, but they will demonstrate the sustained commitment necessary to support the success and long-term involvement in our field of many talented people from traditionally underrepresented groups who we might otherwise lose.
BCALA: As we examine the need for more diverse books, it has been commented upon that the awards committees within the divisions also lack a true understanding and appreciation of the diverse books that are being written for children of color. As President , what would you do to assist in ensuring that more than “one” person of color serves on committees such as the Newbery (15), Caldecott (15), Alex (9), Sibert (9), and the like. (It should be noted that the Coretta Scott King award has at any given time 2-3 people serving who are not African American and it is only a 7 member committee).
Loida Garcia-Febo:
We need more books written for children of color. As a librarian developing collections for multilingual and multiethnic populations in Queens, I understood the importance of our children seeing their culture, language, folklore and traditions represented in the books they read at the library, at their schools and everywhere. ALA is powerful within the publishing world. Therefore, ALA award-winning books featuring these themes indicate to publishers the books they should be publishing. As a member of the Executive Board of ALA, I have been a strong and vocal supporter of inclusion of members of diverse groups in task forces, committees and association’s activities. I will work with those appointing members to serve in award committees to increase the inclusion of persons of color in these committees.
Terri Grief:
I am a past-AASL president and I know that divisions don’t often appreciate when “big” ALA puts mandates on their work. That being said, I would definitely encourage the selection include representation from all groups. I feel strongly that the emphasis that the association is placing on diversity will be taken to heart by the divisions. To get that representation has tie-ins with question number one. We have to get people of color more involved in the association so that there are members to select. We have a similar problem in AASL. We have neglected to get school librarians on council, mostly through lack of voting. When President-Elect Jim Neal announced the ALA Executive Board candidates, school librarians immediately noticed that we were not represented. When we analyzed why, we realized that there were no school librarians on council that were experienced enough to be selected. AASL has to take responsibility for that because we have failed to get out the vote for our members.
Scott Walter:
Diversity in books and other media is an ongoing concern for librarians, teachers, parents, and everyone with an interest in literature, media, and popular culture that accurately reflects our diverse society and the diverse, global community. Librarians should be involved in initiatives like “We Need Diverse Books,” “We Need Diverse Comics,” etc. Through such efforts, librarians may join others in communicating the need for publishers to support diverse authors and illustrators, and to ensure that their best work is submitted for award consideration. We must also continue our engagement with literacy educators and other P-12 teachers essential to children and young adults being introduced to the work of diverse authors, and to issues of stereotyping, appropriate representation of individuals from diverse communities, etc. This was one of the areas where I worked with teachers working in Native communities when I was in Washington, and it remains an area of interest for me when working with my school library. From this experience and others, I know that there are many ALA members who come from the majority culture who have both the expertise in children’s and young adult literature essential to selecting works for awards, and the commitment to taking an inclusive view of that literature that is informed by, and respectful of, the knowledge and experience of colleagues from minority cultures.That said, it is essential for committees charged with evaluating literature for our most prestigious awards to be as representative as possible in order to ensure that diverse perspectives are included in the award selection. Your question is whether or not the ALA President can ensure that this happens.
While the composition of many awards committees is the responsibility of sponsoring divisions and chapters, I do believe the ALA President has a role to play. The ALA President, for example, can bring this concern to the attention of his colleagues in the divisions and chapters, and ask how the issue of diversity in award selection is connected to diversity initiatives at the division or chapter level. The ALA President can address this question across all Association awards as a component of the strategic interest in Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion. And, the ALA President can encourage individuals representing our diverse membership to do the most important thing they can do to be part of these committees, i.e., join the sponsoring ALA unit. In many cases, the composition of these committees is managed by an ALA division, RT, or chapter, and the primary criterion for selection is membership in the sponsoring unit. If ALA members of color also join the division, round table, or chapter with responsibility for award selection, demonstrate the expertise essential to the work of evaluating the nominees, and volunteer for service on the committees, I have no doubt that we can build awards committees that reflect the cultural awareness and appreciation that is critical to addressing this issue.
The ALA President cannot “solve” this problem, but he or she can work with colleagues across the Association to raise the issue, articulate how this understanding and appreciation of diverse books is critical to the selection of award-winning materials, and encourage diverse members of sponsoring units to make service on award committees a priority. That is something that is important, and it is work that I would look forward to undertaking with members of the affiliates and members of units across the Association.
Thank you for the opportunity to make some initial comments on the concerns of my colleagues in BCALA and the other ethnic affiliates. These are complex problems and they don’t have easy answers, but I believe that progress has been made, and the critical thing for future ALA Presidents to do is to commit to building on that progress and getting us closer to the goal of an increasingly diverse and inclusive profession and professional association. I look forward to the opportunity to work alongside all of you in making that commitment a reality.
