Dear ARLIS,
This was definitely not the time to take time off with my son. What
an interesting discussion I came home to; sorry I missed it. I have
spent today reading and saving all the e-mails on Diversity in ARLIS
and digesting the contents. We have the makings of a good dialogue
here, and one I hope will continue in this public space.
I appreciate Miguel bringing these Diversity issues to the forefront.
I also would salute the efforts made by the Southeast and Texas
chapters and outlined by Janine and Roberto. Perhaps what we need
now in ARLIS/NA is to move from these initial steps of contact to
being proactive in our efforts to diversify our organization. I also
believe that the offer of the Ethnic Caucus to fund a library student
of colour with travel to the Baltimore conference moves us forward in
the right direction.
I can never match Marilyn's eloquence in my response, so I thought I
might offer you all some concrete suggestions we have discussed for
the Diversity Committee and the Baltimore conference. Feel free to
respond with any suggestions and I will archive the discussion.
Plans so far:
A. I plan to talk to the Dean of the University of Maryland College
of Information Studies (my library school) about having ARLIS members
talk to the school. SLA is a regular in the library school as are
ALA and others. Never have I seen ARLIS. I also want to address any
diversity group at UMD library school; I know there is a class this
summer on this issue. I was thinking about asking the Library school
to ante up some matching funds, to those proposed by the Ethnic
Caucus, to send UMD library students of diverse racial and ethnic
backgrounds to attend the ARLIS B-more conference.
B. The same could be done at Pittsburgh since RayAnne has already
made some headway,and the University of NC-Chapel Hill and
Greensboro. All have library schools, strong diversity initiatives,
and close proximity to B-more. Other strong diversity programs like
that at U. of Minnesota should be contacted to solicit support. Any
other suggested schools? I think as co-chairs of the Diversity
Committee, Marilyn and I could compile a list and send out a
professional letter welcoming any collaboration we might get with an
interested library school. I would be happy to travel and meet
anyone (if I can afford it, thus in the mid-atlantic). Others would,
I am sure, also volunteer.
C. The ARLIS/NA Diversity Committee needs to have a presence at ALA
and IFLA. I plan to go to Atlanta for this purpose and will look
forward to talking to our ARLIS reps to either organization. I have
already made some contacts with a couple of diversity organizations
there and I hope to extend them.
D. The response from Janine and Roberto outlining the efforts made by
both the Texas and Southeast chapters to fulfill their mandate were
most helpful and informative and should be strongly encouraged by the
organization. I do also think that we might again "come to those we
seek". I have colleagues at other institutions who travel to Latin
American universities for this type of outreach. They just returned
from a trip to Cuba to meet with other librarians. I hope we can
explore initiatives for this type of outreach, before expecting our
colleagues in Puerto Rico or Mexico to travel to meetings held mostly
in the mainland US. Finally, I think we must be careful not to
simply "annex" any group without their input.
E. Miguel and others, I, myself, find the travel awards prohibitive
because they all carry restrictions that I cannot meet. They remind
me of doing my income tax and being told "STOP, you cannot take this
credit" after being encouraged to to do so. Why not open them up to
all members, new and old, and then mandate that the committee review
the applications for members who identify their race or ethnicity,
allowing for an equality of representation among the award recipients?
F. Could we perhaps have a place on the ARLIS membership fund to
check off a donation to the Ethnic Caucus travel allocation for the
conference? If I can pay $50 for that rubber chicken, I should be
able to give $20 to such a fund. That might send several prospective
new members to the conference. That travel fund could be designated
for library students of colour.
Enough. If we organize our efforts, we should be successful.
Lucie Stylianopoulos
Co-Chair, ARLIS/NA Diversity Committee
--
Lucie Wall Stylianopoulos
Collections and User Instruction Coordinator
Fiske Kimball Fine Arts Library
University of Virginia
Charlottesville, Virginia 22903
tele. 434-924-6604 [log in to unmask]
__________________________________________________________________
Mail submissions to [log in to unmask]
Administrative matters (file requests, subscription requests, etc)
to [log in to unmask]
ARLIS-L Archives and subscription maintenance:
http://lsv.uky.edu/archives/arlis-l.html
Questions may be addressed to list owner (Kerri Scannell) at: [log in to unmask]
