Mississippi State University Libraries Diversity Policy

The MSU Libraries are committed to promoting a working and learning environment free of discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sexual orientation or group affiliation, age, gender, disability, genetic information, marital status, or veteran status. The Libraries are committed to building and maintaining a diverse workforce which is representative of the availability of individuals with requisite skills in each component of the organization: management, faculty, staff, and student assistants. The Libraries are also committed to specific actions in recruiting, training, and mentoring which will contribute to this objective, and to fostering a work environment which will insure tolerance and respect for all. To this end, the MSU Libraries support and comply with MSU’s Diversity Strategic Plan and with the American Library Association’s Association of College and Research Libraries’ (ALA ACRL) Diversity Standards: Cultural Competency for Academic Libraries (2012)

The Round Table on Women's Issues snapshot project: the status of women in libraries internationally

This project was commissioned by the Round Table on Women's Issues (RTWI) at the 66th IFLA conference. The Round Table on Women's Issues is a sub-division of IFLA which concerns itself extensively with questions and issues that have special relevance for women in the library profession and in the user community. Further it develops programmes designed to enhance the opportunities and the image of these two groups of women. The Round Table on Women's Issues promotes the collection, research, publication and dissemination of information on the status of women in librarianship. Another concern is to identify discrimination in all forms, and disparities in resources, programmes, and opportunities relating to women in librarianship. At the 66th Conference, members of the Round Table discussed the Association of Research Libraries' Annual Salary Survey, 1999-2000 and noted that the average salary for female directors (USD 132,000) in United States university libraries was slightly higher than the average salary of male directors (USD 125,000) (pp. 16-18). There is now the highest number of women in top administrative positions than there has been before: 54 women out of a total of 111 directorships. This was of course the good news.The bad news was that the overall salary for women in research and academic libraries in the USA was still only 94 percent that of men. During the 19 years that statistics have been gathered women have been gradually closing the earnings gap, as in 1980 they earned only 87 percent, but it is a slow process. Overall, men represent only 35 percent of the workforce among professional librarians. The Round Table felt it would be interesting to discover how this compared with salaries in other countries and other sectors. This could form the basis for some comparative statistics if other members of the group could follow up. Although aware that delegates at IFLA conferences were not representative of the profession as a whole, it was felt that it might be possible to conduct a 'snapshot' project of delegates, women officers and committee members at IFLA's 67th conference to ascertain the status of women librarians internationally. Sandra Parker and Pat Gannon-Leary from the Information Management Research Institute, University of Northumbria School of Information Studies, obtained an IFLA small grant to undertake this work and to report on findings at the 68th IFLA conference

Challenging the ‘Good Fit’ Narrative: Creating Inclusive Recruitment Practices in Academic Libraries

Academic libraries operate under the assumption that there is one “right candidate” for a multi-layered position and that a search committee, a group of individuals formed with the purpose of assisting a responsible administrator in the recruiting and screening of candidates for a posted academic position, is the fairest and most equitable approach to hiring academic librarians. That assumption is running up against the fact that libraries and academic libraries in particular have an acknowledged a problem with recruiting and retaining librarians of color. According to the latest edition of the American Library Association Diversity Counts report, librarianship remains an overwhelmingly white profession: approximately 88% of credentialed academic librarians are white. There are countless articles bemoaning the state of racial diversity in librarianship and multiple research studies have made recommendations for creating a better culture for diversity, assessing diversity initiatives in librarianship, and retaining librarians of color. However there are no empirical research studies in library literature that have examined the ways in which libraries hire and recruit librarians for diversity. In fact much of the literature perpetuates the idea of hiring a candidate who is a “good cultural fit,” which ultimately is a practice of reproducing the status quo. This paper examines the ways in which hiring practices in academic libraries perpetuate whiteness and undermine libraries’ attempts to recruit for diversity

Challenging the ‘Good Fit’ Narrative: Creating Inclusive Recruitment Practices in Academic Libraries

Academic libraries operate under the assumption that there is one “right candidate” for a multi-layered position and that a search committee, a group of individuals formed with the purpose of assisting a responsible administrator in the recruiting and screening of candidates for a posted academic position, is the fairest and most equitable approach to hiring academic librarians. That assumption is running up against the fact that libraries and academic libraries in particular have an acknowledged a problem with recruiting and retaining librarians of color. According to the latest edition of the American Library Association Diversity Counts report, librarianship remains an overwhelmingly white profession: approximately 88% of credentialed academic librarians are white. There are countless articles bemoaning the state of racial diversity in librarianship and multiple research studies have made recommendations for creating a better culture for diversity, assessing diversity initiatives in librarianship, and retaining librarians of color. However there are no empirical research studies in library literature that have examined the ways in which libraries hire and recruit librarians for diversity. In fact much of the literature perpetuates the idea of hiring a candidate who is a “good cultural fit,” which ultimately is a practice of reproducing the status quo. This paper examines the ways in which hiring practices in academic libraries perpetuate whiteness and undermine libraries’ attempts to recruit for diversity

Challenging the ‘Good Fit’ Narrative: Creating Inclusive Recruitment Practices in Academic Libraries

Academic libraries operate under the assumption that there is one “right candidate” for a multi-layered position and that a search committee, a group of individuals formed with the purpose of assisting a responsible administrator in the recruiting and screening of candidates for a posted academic position, is the fairest and most equitable approach to hiring academic librarians. That assumption is running up against the fact that libraries and academic libraries in particular have an acknowledged a problem with recruiting and retaining librarians of color. According to the latest edition of the American Library Association Diversity Counts report, librarianship remains an overwhelmingly white profession: approximately 88% of credentialed academic librarians are white. There are countless articles bemoaning the state of racial diversity in librarianship and multiple research studies have made recommendations for creating a better culture for diversity, assessing diversity initiatives in librarianship, and retaining librarians of color. However there are no empirical research studies in library literature that have examined the ways in which libraries hire and recruit librarians for diversity. In fact much of the literature perpetuates the idea of hiring a candidate who is a “good cultural fit,” which ultimately is a practice of reproducing the status quo. This paper examines the ways in which hiring practices in academic libraries perpetuate whiteness and undermine libraries’ attempts to recruit for diversity

Equity and Patterns of Library Governance

published or submitted for publicatio

Sex as a Variable: A Bibliography of Women in Libraries 1975-1985

published or submitted for publicatio

Law School Libraries 2007

The primary mission of the law school library is to meet the information needs of the faculty and students of the institution it supports. In addition to their role in educating future lawyers, law schools are the major producers of scholarly literature in law and rely on academic law libraries to provide the resources and support needed for research and publication. Beyond support for the core functions of legal education and research, the specific missions of law school libraries vary depending on the size and missions of law schools of different types. Differences among law schools result in differences among their libraries in collection size and composition, staffing and services offered, and additional clienteles served

Reinventing the Reference Librarian: Information Literacy as a change agent

With information literacy as their ticket, academic librarians have an opportunity to re-enter the teaching and learning arena in a new guise and carve out a challenging, unique role in the world of academia - that is, to reinvent themselves in a new image. As the emphasis shifts from discipline-rich teaching to one of process-oriented learning which emphasises the development of generic skills, academic librarians must accept and seize a more proactive teaching and learning role, and shoulder greater responsibility for pedagogical leadership in higher education. The change in their role will affect all those in the tertiary community as surely as it will affect the profession of librarianship itself. As librarians strive to re-engage as educators with educators, the traditional beliefs, understandings, expectations and practices of all involved will be challenged. It is now critical to re-examine the issues which arise as a result of such a transformation, and the strategies which must be considered in order to overcome some of the more entrenched complexities of the task ahead. This paper investigates, in greater detail, those processes, structures and procedures within library organisations and academic institutions which hinder, facilitate or create opportunities for the librarians who teach information literacy in higher education

Topographic Map Acquisition In U.S. Academic Libraries

published or submitted for publicatio