The July/August issue of College & Research Libraries News, published by the Association of College & Research Libraries (ACRL), includes, “Real Institutions, Real Talk: Reflecting on Over a Decade of Diversity Scholars Visits to ARL Research Libraries.” The diversity scholars who participate in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Initiative to Recruit a Diverse Workforce (IRDW)—master of library and information science (MLIS) students from traditionally underrepresented groups—visit an ARL member library for an inside look at the operations of a major research library.
In this C&RL News article, Mark A. Puente, ARL director of diversity and leadership programs, provides a history of the IRDW site visits, which have been hosted by Harvard University (2005, 2008), Michigan State University (2015, 2016), MIT (2008), and Purdue (2005–2014). Ilana R. Stonebraker, business librarian at Purdue University and a site visit planning committee chair, discusses 10 years of IRDW visits at Purdue. Ebony Magnus, assessment and user experience librarian at Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, describes her experience participating in two site visits, first as a diversity scholar and then as a member of the site visit planning committee at Michigan State University.
About the Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in the US and Canada. ARL’s mission is to influence the changing environment of scholarly communication and the public policies that affect research libraries and the diverse communities they serve. ARL pursues this mission by advancing the goals of its member research libraries, providing leadership in public and information policy to the scholarly and higher education communities, fostering the exchange of ideas and expertise, facilitating the emergence of new roles for research libraries, and shaping a future environment that leverages its interests with those of allied organizations. ARL is on the web at https://www.arl.org/.
