The Ugly Side of Librarianship: Segregation in Library Services from 1900-1950
by Klaus Musmann

 I find it incredible that only 6 African-Americans became librarians in the first 25 years of the 20th century.  Libraries have welcomed African-American librarians for less than a century, and even then not in large numbers.  How diverse is the library profession now?  This calls to mind how in my district, the superintendent has made it one of her goals to bring more educators of color into our classrooms, stating that students of color in the schools have requested that more teachers "look like them".  I would assume that just as seeing teachers of color makes students of color more comfortable and welcomed, the same might hold true for libraries.  The diversity of the employees should match the demographic of their patrons.   Are there still roadblocks--instances of institutionalized racism--that are holding African-Americans and other people of color from entering the library profession?  Or have we made progress?  The country has clearly come a long way in the past 150 years from a time when African-Americans were prohibited from owning books.  However, I would guess that based on the demographic of my class and of the libraries I frequent, we still have work to do to make librarianship open to all.

After reading the article and thinking about librarianship this week, some questions that arose are these: if I am to provide library services and materials to all without judgment or bias, "tak[ing] the people with their prejudices" (81), how then am I to work for social justice?  Should I not hope to eradicate prejudices?  It seems that at least public librarians, unlike teachers, cannot (and perhaps should not?) do much to shape the opinions of those they serve.  Where does a school librarian fit on this spectrum?