In fall 2020, Tammie Busch formed a team of five librarians to work together and write a proposal to the Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Program at the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). One of the goals of this grant program is to “recruit, train, develop, and retain a diverse workforce of library and archives professionals,” and it guided our discussions. Diversity among librarians is clearly not keeping pace with changes in the U.S. population. According to a member survey conducted by the American Library Association in 2017, 86.7% of members identified as white. While there has been an increasing number of programs aimed at recruiting and retaining diverse librarians, the library profession has remained practically unchanged in terms of increasing the number of diverse library staff.

We reviewed the IMLS Forum Report, Positioning Library and Information Science Graduate Programs for 21st Century Practice, and this quote stood out to us, “recruiters need to go where diverse populations already are. It is important to consider early – perhaps as early as middle school and high school – how to expose students to the value of careers in LIS.” Additionally, we were inspired to dream big when we read in the report, “Suliman Hawamdeh wants to see IMLS take some risks by funding “crazy ideas” that might transform the profession.” Put simply, our “crazy idea” was two-fold: 1. design a program to create a partnership between a library workplace partner(s) and a high school career and technical education program(s) and 2. inspire and empower library and information science professionals to follow our lead and scale a program for their setting. We see our program as a call to action in response to the serious lack of diverse representation in libraries. So began the Diverse Librarianship Career Training and Education Program (DLCTE)! You can read our full proposal on the IMLS website at this link. 

DLCTE Goals

One of the five goals from our grant proposal is, “Develop and disseminate a toolkit that includes a curriculum of librarianship for students and library staff that emphasizes leadership training, racial equity, racial justice, inclusion, and culturally responsive education.” We hope to sustain the benefits of our project via this website by providing materials that are readily adaptable and usable in communities throughout the United States of America. We hope to inspire other library and information science professionals to build upon our work and lead the way to systemic change in libraries. 

Career Awareness

It will come as no surprise to librarians and information professionals that many people are unaware of the work we do. While people know libraries and librarians exist, the inner workings of our organizations remain a mystery. We are still perfecting our elevator pitch to recruit students for our program. Many students assumed we were looking for people who loved to read books, because that is the work they would be doing! When you “go where diverse populations” are, and especially when you are working with middle and high school students, be prepared to communicate what you do, why it is important, and how others may find the work rewarding and exciting. The last part is perhaps the most challenging. Check out Scaling a Program in the Getting Started section for some ideas about how to help people explore library careers.