Page 22 - BCALA Spring 2018

22 | BCALA NEWS | Volume 45, Issue 2 once a week to engage in dialogue-
based activities that allow them to be familiar with one another, with the Schlesinger Library, and the benefits that the archives can offer to their lives. This outreach program will
be called “Joining the Generations” (JtG).
Before I elaborate on the details
of how this program would be set
up, I will provide a basis for why I am focusing on age diversity. A key first step in designing a diversity
and inclusion program is defining what is meant by diversity and inclusion. Often, diversity efforts
are synonymous with efforts to change the racial makeup of a group or institution so that it is more reflective of the racial makeup of
the surrounding community or the nation as a whole. This is certainly
a pressing need in the archival science field, where, according to
an American Archivist study, over
97 percent of archivists are white (Banks 396). As I discussed in my presentation at the 2017 Diversity, Equity, Race, Accessibility, and Identity in LIS (DERAIL) Forum, the decision to focus on race or ethnicity as the only dimension of diversity can be limiting if it does not take into account the intersectionality
of other social identities (White).
For example, a poor transgender woman’s experience of being Black will likely differ from a middle-class cisgender man’s experience of being Black (See Appendix). Furthermore, as Jaeger, Bertot, and Franklin articulate,
No meaningful attempts have been made to determine the representation
in librarianship
and LIS of many diverse populations— including persons with disabilities; the socioeconomically and geographically disadvantaged; and gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and questioning (GLBTQ) individuals, among others. (176)
The amount of diversity represented within a single racial identity is worth considering in diversity and inclusion initiatives.
Another rationale for centering
age in this project is to lessen generational isolation. One does
not have to look far for newspaper and Internet articles that pit the millennial and younger generations against baby boomers. Along with
the generational divide that has been a facet of human society since time immemorial, a factor that creates an even bigger challenge in this day and age is the digital divide, which further
separates the young and the old. The Joining the Generations (JtG) project will work to combat this trend. For the high school students, it will instill a value for the archives early in life and influence them to find ways to preserve their own histories. For elders, it will provide an opportunity to share their expertise and connect with younger people on shared interests. In that sense, the project that I am proposing has value not only for Schlesinger Library, but also for the social cohesiveness of the surrounding community as a whole.
Of course, in order to implement
this program, there must be participants. To attract interested high school students, I propose adapting a strategy used by Yale University archivists in their program to introduce students at a local
high school to the archives. These archivists built relationships with the principal and with high school teachers for the purpose of including projects related to family and community history in the curriculum for the academic year. Moreover, they specifically chose to work with
a racially diverse magnet school (Hartwig and Weideman). Because the project that I am proposing is
a summer program, including it in the curriculum is less necessary. Still, working with teachers, as well as coaches and advisors for student organizations will be effective because these individuals will have insight on which students will be most interested in the program. Likewise, it would still be feasible