Unequal legacies: Race and multiculturalism in the LIS curriculum by Christine Pawley

Although I had already read this article before, it was a pleasure to read it again and confirms my good choice to drop everything in Kansas City and move here to study with such a fine faculty open to new ways of thinking about both our past and our future as information professionals.

I read this article when I was researching library schools. I looked at the staff pages of three institutions and picked out Christine as the person who I felt did research that was close to what I planned on attempting to study. As a matter of fact, after reading this, I felt a little anxious because I realized that I was a 30 year old white girl from the midwest who was trying to get into a library studies program. I figured at that point I had better stress the fact that I was from an atypical working class background which most likely set me apart from over half the student population; otherwise I am just another white girl trying to be a librarian. I know that Christine didn't mean it that way, or did she?

First of all, I like how she writes about "race-neutral spaces,"; although I feel that it is very important to talk about inequalities in our society, it's a nice thought. We cannot make these issues go away by ignoring them. We need to put them out in the open and pinpoint where we went wrong and then try to imagine ourselves in a better and more equal place where everyone gets to play the library game in the same building and even the same room. I agree with her about the blanket term "multiculturalism" and how it serves to hide the problems from us that still face us as a nation and as future librarians.

Page 60 of the text hit me particularly hard, when Christine points to subject headings for "public libraries/Services to minorities" and then lists 7 minorities which do not include German and Irish Americans.

Christine points to the vast technological changes that libraries warmed to so quickly and learned with as much speed and grace as is possible in that situation. Could we also change parts of our curriculum to study these issues. I guess that is partially what we are doing now, in this class but we may need more.