Seven Components of a Successful Library-wide Diversity Program by Kriza Jennings, Program Officer for Diversity and Minority Recruitment The goal of a library-wide diversity program is to develop a climate where all library personnel and library users feel welcomed, valued, and respected. Based on the site visits and consultations made to ARL libraries over the past five years, seven components of a successful library-wide diversity program were identified. The following report describes each component and the OMS/ARL seminars that are available to assist libraries to develop, foster, and support library-wide diversity programs. 1) Administrative Agenda and Leadership It is imperative that a high degree of commitment and support for program development be provided by the upper administrative levels of the library. For a diversity program to be successful, the administration must be prepared to commit resources as well as to articulate clearly the importance of the program to the library. An OMS seminar, "Developing a Library Diversity Program: The Agenda and Role of Administration," reviews these critical aspects of implementing library-wide diversity programs. The seminar "Advancing Diversity with Committees, Staff Positions, and Strategic Plans" explores the three most commonly implemented strategies for ensuring that a library-wide diversity program is successfully put into practice, supported, and monitored. 2) Management and Supervision One of the most important keys to a successful diversity program is the active commitment of all supervisors and managers, and the direct implementation of diversity activities within each department. This requires open and extensive discussions about supervisory styles that provide an environment for all library personnel to develop and perform at their best. This focus includes heightening the awareness of supervisors to the human differences within the workforce and ensuring that a value is placed upon the various qualities and contributions each staff person can offer. It is our experience that a mini-seminar for supervisors, held on-site, successfully opens up dialogue for focusing on this component. In addition, the seminar "Involving Staff in the Development of a Library-wide Diversity Program: Programs, Services, Collections, Committees, Staff Development and Planning" is designed to enable the manager to focus on his/her own perceptions about diversity among personnel and to learn ways to tap into these talents and skills. 3) Relationships with Co-Workers The area where diversity impacts almost every employee in the library is in their personal and professional relationships with co-workers. Although it is often common practice to ignore or avoid diversity issues relating to work relationships, this is, in fact, the area where most staff are anxious to have more attention placed. Diversity issues that are not discussed can become barriers to fostering communication and decision making in the organization. The goal is to provide a framework for each employee to become more aware of and assess his/her own biases and prejudices, and for discussions about the need for work groups to possess a broad variety of skills and talents. "Fostering a Climate in the Workplace for Diversity" is a seminar designed to assist managers, supervisors, and human resource officers in fostering better work relationships among personnel. On-site presentations also are helpful in providing library personnel with a framework for beginning discussions on this issue. 4) Recruiting a Diverse Workforce Most ARL libraries actively seek to add diversity to their workforce, especially racial diversity. In 1994, the ARL membership established a part-time capability to support local minority recruitment and retention efforts. A committee of ARL directors works with the Program Officer on Diversity and Minority Recruitment and Retention on ways to implement strategies nationally and regionally. At the local level, consultations tend to focus on hiring practices, search procedures, and, most importantly, the need for ARL personnel to network more widely beyond the ARL library community. ARL offers three seminars that provide guidance for implementing these programs: "Implementing Minority Recruitment Strategies," "Implementing Minority Retention Strategies," and "Search Committees and Minority Recruitment." Informal discussions with library personnel also provide opportunities for the examination of assumptions and beliefs. 5) Interactions with Library Users In a diversity program, library personnel are encouraged to explore their own personal biases, prejudices, assumptions, and attitudes about others, including library users. It is important for all levels of staff to be aware of their role in promoting a welcoming environment in the library for every person who seeks access to the library's services. ARL/OMS mini-seminars and presentations are available to provide on-site assistance to student workers, support staff, and librarians in assessing their interactions with library users and to identify where they need improvement or development. Although these discussions often begin at a library-wide level, they are usually most effective when the dialogue reaches the unit level. 6) Library Services and Programs Within the exploration of the relationship between diversity and library services or programs is a close examination of the library's philosophy of service and an assessment of how that philosophy is practiced throughout the library and across all levels of staff. It is important to identify both current clients and library users, and future or potential users from the campus and/or community. The seminar "Assessment and Design of Library Services for a Diverse User Population" is designed to offer direction and share ideas on how to explore and develop this concept in the library. While ARL libraries have a solid set of services and programs, it has been found that discussion of these issues with personnel who staff service desks often leads to ideas for enhancing services. These enhancements are usually no more than a reexamination of perspectives and attitudes about the role of a library that is committed to advancing diversity in a research environment. 7) Development of Collections ARL libraries often assume that the collections are the area where they are most successful in responding to diversity because of the range of subjects within a library. However, when responding to and exploring collections as a diversity issue, it has been found that collections may not provide the broadest exploration of issues available due to the personal biases and focuses of selectors and/or university faculty. This issue is best addressed through on-site consultations with collection development officers as each library's approach for addressing this issue is different depending on the culture of the university and the library. There are several interesting collection development models being developed in ARL libraries through the OMS Diversity Partnership's Program; these will be available to all ARL members later this year through the diversity resource kits shared with each member institution several times per year. For more information about ARL/OMS diversity and minority recruitment programs, contact Kriza Jennings at the ARL offices or email kriza@cni.org. Box for article: Definition of Diversity The ARL/OMS programs for diversity, and minority recruitment and retention, define diversity as those human qualities or characteristics that make people different, unique, the same, and similar. These distinctions are not limited to racial or ethnic diversity. ------- ARL 180 A Bimonthly Newsletter of Research Library Issues and Actions Association of Research Libraries May 1995