September 1, 1990
TO: LAUC Members
FR: Sylvia Y. Curtis, Acting Chair, LAUC Ad Hoc Committee for Regional Workshops on Cultural Diversity in Libraries (Lillian Castillo-Speed (B) ; Rafaela Castro (D) : Richard Chabran (LA); Araxie Churukian (R) ; Patrick Dawson (I); Tami Echavarria (SD); Edith Fisher, Chair (SD); Floyd Gaffney (SD); Adan Griego (SB); Carol Yates-Imah (SF); Eluid Martinez (R); Vivian Sykes (SC); Co-authors: Joan Ariel (I) : Ellen Broidy (I)
RE: Issue Papers for Campus Discussion on Cultural Diversity
LAUC will host its first conference on achieving cultural diversity in libraries, Monday, October 15, at UCLA. This first "LAUC Cultural Diversity Workshop" is funded with major support from the Office of the President. The goal of the workshops is to produce a set of recommendations for the Office of the President on diversity in libraries. To initiate discussion on the issues, members of the committee and invited co-authors have written the attached papers which describe background, issues and recommendations by topic:
--bibliographic access
--bibliographic instruction
--collection development
--recruitment
--reference services
We hope these papers will generate fruitful discussions at each campus and lead to a set of campus recommendations on the issues. Representatives from each campus will report on the results and, along with others interested in these areas, will further refine the recommendations into a single set of recommendations for each issue. The committee will forward its report Along with a set of finalized recommendations based upon the results of the October workshops, to the LAUC Executive Board for discussion and adoption at the Fall Assembly in Santa Barbara.
President Gardner has called for a "reinvigorated" effort to increase the number of women and minorities in the UC community Her has also expressed a commitment to achieving cultural diversity in the UC system on all fronts of academic life.
Individual libraries have already begun to tackle these issues in a variety of ways. The papers and October workshops are another way to explore how these individual efforts can be used as building blocks for programs that could be adopted systemwide.
Recognizing the importance of this enterprise and our collective responsibility to develop and justify strong recommendations that will successfully go forward and be implemented by the Office of the President, library administrators, LAUC and its members, we urge you to help shape the future by:
**participating in your campus forums to understand issues, voice concerns and make both long- and short-term recommendations;
**relaying your comments and recommendations to your Diversity Committee member, your workshop representative(s) and/or chair of your campus LAUC;
**participating in the cultural diversity workshop in October.
Encls:
Issue Papers:
Bibliographic Access to Ethnic Collections within the University of
California
Bibliographic Instruction for Resources on Cultural Diversity in UC Libraries
Collection Development for Culturally Diverse Materials in UC Libraries
Recruitment and Advancement of Racial and Ethnic Librarians Reference Services
for Cultural Diversity in UC Libraries
LAUC Cultural Diversity Workshop Registration Form Directions to UCLA