Assessing the Racial Diversity of Librarians
How racially diverse is the librarian profession, and how can we begin to assess that diversity? Those are the two key questions at the heart of two companion issue briefs we are publishing today.
The first issue brief, co-authored by both of us, focuses on the methodological implications of trying to measure the racial demographic trends of the profession in the absence of systematic benchmarking beyond US Census data reported through the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In trying to do so, we looked at ALA’s Diversity Counts and member demographic surveys, as well as Census microdata files from the Current Population Survey and the Annual Social and Economic Supplement, needing to reconcile assumptions built into each dataset, issues of sample size and differences in how race, ethnicity, and citizenship are reported out across all of these sources. Establishing a clear baseline of the current state of the racial demographic makeup of the profession is challenging—by any metric.
Yet, the data still consistently show that librarianship is a predominantly white profession. Eight-five percent of librarians are white despite the growing overall demographic diversity in the US, and we project that a decade from now 83 percent of librarians will be white. In the issue brief, we create a model to actually project how many more BIPOC students would need to graduate each year in order to reach a greater diversity threshold. We estimate that between 500-1,100 additional BIPOC students would need to graduate from MLIS programs every year for the next 10 years if the profession is to become 25 percent BIPOC.
Is that feasible and is the profession attractive to BIPOC students? That is the focus of the second issue brief, authored by Curtis, who offers an on-the-ground perspective as a library faculty and staff mentor and former dean of university libraries at Binghamton University. He discusses some of the professional development programs, both in operation and in the planning stages, designed to advance the profession’s ability to provide a more welcoming library environment for BIPOC staff. Curtis also proposes reconsidering the use of the MLS as a gatekeeper to the profession, arguing that it works against diversifying libraries.
Together, these two issue briefs paint a picture of the methodological complexities as well as the substantive implications of being able to measure librarianship demographics in a systematic way that tracks the evolution of the profession. Ithaka S+R has tracked demographic changes in art museums since 2014 and recently published the A*CENSUS All Archivists Survey report that, among other things, uncovered how the demographic profile of the profession had changed since the survey was originally fielded in 2004. We would like to undertake similar work with academic libraries and are currently exploring ways to do so. In the meantime, we look forward to your thoughts and feedback on today’s publications.
Note: Curtis Kendrick is a member of ITHAKA’s board of trustees.
Comments
I believe the first efforts were made in the 1980s under the late ALA OLPR director, Margaret Myers. These are outlined in:
Library Trends 49 (1) 2000: Ethnic Diversity in Library and Information Science
2000
AN ASSESSMENT OF THE STATUS OF LIBRARY SERVICE to minority populations of the United States first requires an understanding of the long struggle to include people of color among the ranks of those providing library service. This issue of Library Trends presents an overview of the efforts of African-Americans, Asian/Pacific Islander-Americans, Chinese Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans to develop services, identify important issues, foster leadership, and establish inclusive definitions of identity. Without these narratives, there would be insufficient philosophical, intellectual, or emotional bases on which to develop future programs and collections. In 1988, the American Library Association (ALA),Office for Library Personnel Resources (OLPR) under the leadership of its director, Margaret Myers, issued Librarians for the New Millennium (1988). In that volume, the need for emphasis on the recruitment of minorities to the library and information science professions was a central theme. Efforts to secure ALA funding for the recruitment of minorities, including OLPR hearings held in 1987, are summarized and a 1988 invitational preconference on recruitment described. As background for the preconference, OLPR supported an analysis of students enrolled in U.S. programs of library and information science: the Library and Information Science Student Attitudes, Demographics and Aspirations Survey (LISSADA Survey) . The LISSADA Survey reported that enrolled students in 1988 were 90 percent white. Thus began a decade of studies,...
I know from personal history that ALA's interest in this subject dates back to before 1983, which is when I was awarded the Louise Giles Minority Scholarship to support my MLS studies. We've been talking about this for a long time.
Thank you so much for this work. I appreciate the focus on the “reluctance to share power with people with other professional expertise, as well as with BIPOC librarians themselves” and the urgent need to “expand our concept of who holds sanctioned positions of power and leadership.”
Thank you also for highlighting the proposal that April Hathcock, Maria Rios wrote up and that I have been developing and presenting with coworkers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst at various conferences since 2018. I would like to make one clarification. In the second Issues Brief, you write that “Isabel Espinal, April M. Hathcock, and Maria Rios have proposed a post-baccalaureate fellowship model in which libraries incentivize staff to pursue the MLS degree. In this model the library would pay for some of its underrepresented non-librarian staff to obtain the MLS while on the job…” I want to clarify that our proposal also, and in many cases predominantly, calls for libraries to incentivize Black, Indigenous and people of color in their student populations and general communities who aren’t already on staff to come work in the libraries while the library funds their getting the MLIS degree. In this model, libraries would then be creating fellowship positions that don’t already exist. The reasoning for this component is that while many libraries have numerous racially underrepresented staff, many others, like ours do not. Yes, our library and all libraries should fully financially support our current staff of color to obtain their degrees and join the ranks of librarians, but we can not stop there when there aren’t enough staff of color.
Over the years , I have found that many of our students and community members of color are intrigued by the work I do and attracted to this profession but the MLS becomes a barrier, as your issues brief suggests. Often BIPOC want to get the degree – but it’s too much of a financial burden to obtain. The chapter I wrote with April Hathcock and Maria Rios describes how the racial wealth gap contributes to the low numbers of BIPOC with the MLS degree. If libraries want to change that, they need to put funding towards helping BIPOC to get the degree. I also agree with Curtis Kendrick that it could help to remove the MLS as a gatekeeper to the profession; it would definitely help in those libraries that truly are committed to recruiting more BIPOC. But the will needs to be there: I have also seen that cases where the MLS is not the only entry to librarian positions, and BIPOC are still not hired, while white librarians without the MLS are hired; in those cases, it’s not the MLS that’s the gatekeeper.
Isabel, you and your work are an inspiration. Thanks for the clarification about student recruitment.