Managing Diversity Service Culture in Academic Libraries

Daniel J. Pool
October 26
th
, 2014

Academic libraries serve diverse peoples from a global community. Because libraries represent a public good to those
peoples it is imperative that they meet the varying needs of their community members. In order to fulfil those needs it is
important that university libraries understand and manage themselves for diversity. To better understand the concepts of
diversity it is imperative to understand what diversity means, why patrons need it, and what kind is needed in academic
libraries.
Every society represents only a single collection of languages, abilities, preferences or shared history (Mestre 2010).
When these societies interact with one another they are then faced with diversity of the differences between each member.
Diversity then is inherently hard to define narrowly as is evidenced by the number of different ways it can be discussed (Young
2006). The world at large is quickly becoming more connected through the globalizing effect of technology and business
(Rosenzweig 1998). This has caused far reaching demographic changes that has increased the overall diversity of society (Kreitz
2008). Typically these differences can be filed under four major qualities according to Kreitz which include personality, internal
characteristics, external characteristics, and organizational characteristics.
Diversity traits are further broken into roughly nine sub categories of ethnicity, national origin, gender, religion, social
class, age, sexual orientation, and disability all play a part in what makes someone an individual (Shore, Chung-Herrera, Dean,
Ehrhart, Jung, Randal, & Sigh 2009). While there can be people in a region that emulate similar characteristics even within
homogeneous populations every member will vary in some way (Young 2006). University campuses likewise may favor one
race, cultural origin, or cognition level but because of the international appeal of higher education many universities have
members from around the globe (Shachaf & Snyder 2007). Not only will the academic library have a boarder population but
they will also feature members that combine diverse characteristics in different ways to produce more diversity even in similar
groups (Shore et al. 2009). Academic libraries are also well situated to help couch the topic of diversity because of their role as
an information provider to the university (Young 2006).
The physical appearance or ethnicity of an individual is a kind of diversity that mainly relates to the way an individual
looks and is associated with others of a similar appearance (Shore et al. 2009). Race poses a problematic issue for research in
American studies as early experiments in the field yielded mainly negative results versus modern studies that tend to support
positive results from interactions of mixed races working together. This could represent experimenter bias, flawed
methodology, or reflect the changing trends in how race is viewed in American society. That said differences do exist however
(Shachaf & Snyder 2007). One study found that black students would hesitate to ask questions through electronic resources at
the library whereas while students would not hesitate. Once they had asked one question however, black students would be
more likely to ask more questions or follow up with additional questions versus their white counterparts.
Common assumptions made about race include; humans generally make surface-level assessments of people they
meet in the absence of other information about the person, when forming in-groups and out-groups mentally people tend to
assume that physical characteristics create artificial boundaries between members, these judgments could lead to negative
outcomes for minorities or out-group members, and that these issues can affect overall group performance (Shore et al. 2009).
National Origin or cultural origin encompasses a collections of general attributes related to the general environment
in which an individual was raised (Shore et al. 2009). This could be a minor difference such as dietary restrictions or accent but
can be more noticeable such as requirement of religious tokens that must be worn like headwear. Typically it is a feature that is
shared amongst those individuals of a similar area.
In academic settings this can be seen in migrant students who may experience varying degrees of cultural shock and
react in different ways to being in a new culture (Shore et al. 2009). This can be seen if an individual has to: reject their culture
in favor of fitting in better with their host society through assimilation, reject their culture and the culture of their host society
through marginalization, maintain their culture and reject that of their host society through separation, or maintain their
culture and accept the host society as well through integration.
Gender is typically the difference in physical identity of an individual in regards to biological function (Shore et al
2009). Traditionally this has been a binary male or female label that is applied to someone by their birth and nurtured through
societal norms within an individuals culture.
Sexual orientation on the other hand is the emotional identity of an individual in regards to their psychological
preference in sexual partners (Shore et al. 2009). It is considered an invisible characteristic as it is not a physically noticeable
trait. Despite being invisible it can affect how the individual interacts with their community by the way they feel they relate to
other members of society as they do not identify as an in-group member with heterosexuals of either gender.
The age of an individual can carry negative connotations in respect to their environment (Shore et al. 2009). Older
employees have reported receiving less training opportunities. This is due to a bias that they are harder to train, less willing to
learn, and perform less substantially next to their younger counterparts. These stereotypes can be hurtful in how they exclude
older individuals from positive relationships.
Disability relates to an individuals perspective medical, social, and moral traits (Shore et al. 2009). Individuals with
disability often face discrimination because of their impairment. Those with uncontrollable issues often elicit pity from those
nearby which can be demoralizing. Individuals with controllable issues often elicit anger and desire to neglect.
Studies have found that diversity is important to students because of the growing global business (Rosenzweig 1998)
but also because diversity makes all students more successful in all aspects of their lives (Kreitz 2008). Training in how to react
to diversity also enables students to better cope with change (Podsiadlowski, Grschke, Kogler, Springer, van der Zee 2013).
Diversity within communities has also been found to increase the amount of information access available (Shore et al.
2009). As more individuals from different backgrounds are added to a group they help increase the number of sources that can
be pulled from (Shachaf & Snyder 2007).This leads to great amounts of creativity when solving problems, enhance the quality of
debates (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013), and foster understanding of other cultures outside of the bounds of that community (Shore
et al. 2009). By working in a diverse campus environments students gain intellectual experiences that build understanding
between one another that benefits student success (Dewey & Keally 2008).
A criticism for diversity is the evidence that suggests that the greater amount of homogeneity shared between group
members actually increased cooperative behavior (Eckel & Grossman 2005). This is considered to be natural and a trait held
between nearly all humans no matter their background (Kreitz 2008). For example ethnically diverse teams generally display
increase in conflict and negative communication (Shore et al. 2009). This in addition to the fact that different groups seek
information in a consistent way with themselves (Shachaf & Snyder 2007) and that groups resist change (Kreitz 2008) could
theoretically build a platform to support ignoring diversity issues altogether adopting a defensive reaction to change
(Podsiadlowski et al. 2013). This benefit however is not worth the cost. Members of the out-group can experience
discrimination that can damage productivity and more importantly the individual themselves. For example ethnically diverse
teams tend to make better decisions overall despite any confrontation they may have experienced reaching that decision
(Shore et al. 2009).
In an academic setting it is important then to practice cultural competency as the university community will
commonly contain members who have immigrated or are visiting from a different culture (Mestre 2010). This means more than
just knowing about or awareness about a culture but requires the individual to being able to actively engage with others with
differing values, customs, or backgrounds. To do this it is important for academic libraries to: hire more diverse employees,
make more diverse collections (Young 2006), and to train employees to better understand how to work with one another
(Kreitz 2008).
One powerful metaphor for the importance of diversity programs was a concept called foxhole diversity or survival
diversity which is diversity if one has to get along with another in order to survive (Kreitz 2008). The idea is that two individuals
will get along no matter how different they are if they are pitted against a mutual threat (homework, deadlines, etc.). The issue
being that once the threat is gone they may not continue to be cooperative. To that end, university libraries should work to
plan, create, and promote diverse offerings to their patrons (Young 2006). In order to ensure lasting change in an institutions
culture then each library must create a diversity strategy (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013).
A strategy can be implemented at the speed an organization feels appropriate and there are many different ways to
do so that can be made to fit the institution (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013). Parts of the plan could include rewarding homogeneity
in response, creating attainable goals to meet, and pursing systematic change over time (Kreitz 2008). Most diversity plans will
strive to answer issues in diversity in one of three way; defensively (by not doing anything specifically), reactively (by meeting
the minimum requirements according to the law), or proactively (by actively encouraging learning opportunities for the entire
institution) (Podsiadlowski et al. 2013).
One way to foster proactive diverse cooperation is to create team-centric tasks outside of regular work (Eckel &
Grossman 2005). The concept is based on cognitive and behavioral psychology and works by suppressing self interest in order
to benefit a group. This is similar to foxhole diversity in that the groups will work better together while on a team for a short
time (Kreitz 2008). In order to strengthen those bonds outside of the situation they need to be grouped together however is to
enforce said group identity (Eckel & Grossman 2005). By limiting the importance of individuality in lieu of the importance of
team identity, diverse groups can learn to cooperate more successfully outside of the team with other individuals. This could be
accomplished by holding activities outside of class work that involve randomly assigned teams to compete, cooperate, and
solve problems in safe welcoming environments. Central to creating this environment is embracing leadership collaboration in
the librarys infrastructure itself (Dewey & Keally 2008).
Academic libraries can facilitate the needs of a diverse student body by hiring and encouraging a dedicated leadership
devoted to inclusion (Dewey & Keally 2008). This can be done by hiring a dedicated diversity librarian or by creating committees
that oversee diversity initiatives. One program did this by offering residencies to young librarians who had yet to begin their
careers. By allowing them time to work with diverse groups they proactively built the cognitive framework to understand other
groups (Eckel & Grossman 2005). Not only that but by having a diverse resident librarian on campus, students from the
university felt like they could interact with less hesitation in beginning interactions with a staff member that they could relate
to ((Dewey & Keally 2008). In theory this would lead to more trust in the institution at large and in time give the diverse
students more agency when addressing figures of authority in the library for the future (Young 2006).
In summary, diversity is a highly individualistic quality that is formed by a collection of traits that may or may not be
homogenous to a group or region. Though criticism of diversity exists, the benefits to the individual and the community at large
far exceed the costs to build bonds between majorities and minorities within a society. For academic libraries this is a
paramount concern due to the number of diverse students on campus and the boons associated with cooperation with said
students for the institution and individual. To do this, academic libraries should construct an inclusive diversity management
plan to systematically build a team mentality between patrons and staff.
Diversity may be hard to articulate narrowly but the benefits affect every member of a community. This is because
every member is diverse no matter how alike they may appear. By taking a stand on this aspect of information stewardship,
university libraries have a chance to not only better serve their communities but also better serve one another. By creed this is
the mission of information science. Provide access as freely as possible to the most patrons as possible. Diversity management
in academic libraries then is not a feature or product offering but the foremost mission of any institution.



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