School of Information Management & Systems.
Spring 2003.
285
Design of Library Services. Michael Buckland.
Assignment 5: Serving Diverse Communities.
Due Feb 28.
Libraries exist to serve communities of people -- often a multiple differing
communities at the same time -- and a large part of the challenge to make
the service appropriate for a particular group. There are, of course, many
different kinds of communities: by occupation, by location, by reading interest,
by cultural heritage, by language, by age, and so on. There has been a steady
flow, especially since the 1960s, of discussion, publication, and resources
concerned with service to special groups.
Newspaper reports on the 2000 Census noted the increase in Hispanic / Latino
/ Chicano communities in California. Here are some English-language web-sites
concerned with library services to the Spanish-speaking:
Reforma: National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking
www.reforma.org
SOL Spanish in Our Libraries
skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/students/bjensen/html/sol.htm
PLUS Public Libraries Using Spanish
skipper.gseis.ucla.edu/students/bjensen/html/plus
Barahona Center for the Study of Books in Spanish for Children and Young Adults
www.csusm.edu/csbs
In addition to the usual literature searching in Library Literature and Library and Information Science Abstracts, one way to locate groups concerned with service to special groups is to look at the
American Library Association Roundtables, listed at
www.ala.org/alaorg/rtables/rtables_home.html
e.g.
Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT)
lonestar.utsa.edu/jbarnett/emie.html [site under reconstruction 2/13/03]
which provides a
Resources and Links page
lonestar.utsa.edu/jbarnett/emielinks.html and
the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Round Table
calvin.usc.edu/~trimmer/ala_hp.html
which has a A Selective Bibliography for Lesbian Readers
and an (old) website on Classification Schemes for Lesbian/Gay Materials.
Also, scroll down the the list of associations affiliated
with the American Library Association, listed at
www.ala.org/alaorg/affiliates/affiliates_home.html and visit a few.
Examples include:
American Indian Library Association
www.nativeculture.com/lisamitten/aila.html
Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association
www.uic.edu/depts/lib/projects/resources/apala
Black Caucus of ALA
www.bcala.org
Chinese-American Librarians Association
www.cala-web.org
Assignment:
(a). Take a look at one or more of the sites on service to
the Spanish-speaking – #1 above.
(b). Find some other sources on services to a special group (using #2 above
if you wish); and
(c). Present a short report in class and on paper summarizing what you found.
Note that most of the organizations organize programs
at the American Library Association Annual Meeting and some at the
California Library Association Annual Meeting.