Pros And Cons Of Ethnic Librarianship

At the risk of being cliché, it can be said that history tends to repeat itself. This old saying appears to ring true in the article Ethnic Libraries and Librarianship in the United States: Models and Prospects by Stephen Stern. Humans are cyclical creatures, and many issues, such as topics relating to immigration, facing our modern society have already been experienced and dealt with in some fashion in the past. According to Stern librarians have been dealing with and trying to find the best approach to handle these issues for over 100 years. The author states that and there are four models of ethnic library service. These models present a historical look at how ethnic librarianship was dealt with in the past and how they can serve as
Attentions were “designed to examine injustices at home and to muster the American government’s resources to eradicate them” (86). Government agencies designed to help did little to address the actual needs of people suffering in rural areas or in the inner cities and so the war on poverty began in 1964 (86). “Because of their social, economic, cultural, and educational handicaps, these groups could be expected to suffer more deprivations than the rest of society” (86). On a second front “the Civil Rights Movement brought a consciousness – first to blacks then to other ethnic minorities – that they would have to demand their rights in order to gain equal access” from the government agencies again designed to help (86). No longer was assimilation and integration sought after alternatively the “theme of cultural pluralism began to replace that of intercultural understanding” (87). Minority cultures sought ways to preserve and maintain their communities while fighting to increase their access to the “channels of power, to ensure that justice was distributed fairly” (87). Librarians seized upon the momentum of these movements create equal educational opportunities for the disenfranchised. “The profession began to examine critically it services to ethnic groups and respond to their needs” (89). Views of discrimination were no longer only seen as physical, but also indirectly as well, meaning that resources and services differed between communities as well (88). This was problematic. Improving the access and the quality of resources librarians emphasized the long-term social improvements that could be gained (88). Again materials in libraries were examined and expanded to include more resources exploring the value of cultures traditionally ignore, and community