Multi-Cultural Graduate Library Education

Abstract

IN THE UNITED STATES, almost everyone knows that a librarian is a middle-aged, white woman. Two times out of ten she will be a man and once every 12 or 13 times she will be other than white, but chances are she is white. Few other occupations are more middle-aged, more female and/or more white.1 The major purpose of this paper is to discover to what extent, during the past eight to ten years, the student bodies of accredited library school programs ■•/■■have changed from the predominately white demographic characteristic. It's principal focus is upon the activities and problems involved in higher education for U.S. minority students, but it also briefly discusses concerns specifically related to Canadian library schools and the education of foreign students in American library schools. What is discovered is on the one hand heartening, for a number of schools have undertaken effective recruitment programs and there are now more non-white librarians. For example, in 1969 there were only 156 black students and 31: svudents of Spanish heritage enrolled in accredited programs,2 while in 1975 there were 338 black and 72 Spanish heritage graduates of these schools.3 On the other hand, there is cause for despair, because, for the most part, the progress has been the result of one-time efforts supported by dollars from outside of the library schools' regular budgets. There is, in fait, little indication that racial diversity is indeed a priority in graduate library education. With the myriad of other problems facing the schools, problems such as altering curricula, providing continuing education programs, encouraging faculty to do research, to name but a few, and considering that it is truly an Herculean task to recruit and finance students other than those who select themselves, it is not at all surprising that student bodies remain predominatly white.