Are We Doing Enough?: Four Stories of Diversity in Library Collections Regina Gong Head of Technical Services & Systems Lansing Community College Library Charleston Conference, November 6, 2015

Located in downtown Lansing, MI 3 rd largest community college in MI 15,842 enrollment for Fall 2015 semester Library staff: 12 FT and 10 part-time $500K annual collections budget

Collection Overview 90,234 print books 265,294 electronic resources 18,416 streaming videos 5,834 AV materials 125 research databases 124 print periodicals and newspaper titles 50 iPads and 25 Kindle Fire for borrowing

LCC’s diversity profile snapshot

“LCC fosters cultural diversity and critical thinking and the library collection reflects cultural diversity and multiple controversial points of view.” - From LCC Library’s Collection Development Policy

Catalog Search SubjectNumber of Titles % from Total Collection (371,212) GLBTQ1, African American*5, People with Disabilities1, Arab* Asian*317 Hispanic*652 Native American/American Indian14 Women*7,3692

Special Collections READ Collection – Lower level reading, ESL, ESOL students Career Collection – Designed to serve students with easily accessible and understandable sources for finding college and career related information.

Cultural Diversity Databases Discovering Collection Contains book and magazine articles, creative works, primary sources, and video and podcast resources covering core curriculum areas: history, literature, science, social studies and more. Global Issues in Context Provides international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of global issues, topics, and current events.

Cultural Diversity Databases Global Road Warrior Covers 175 countries and addresses 22 categories of interest to travelers, including business culture, communications, demographics, money and banking, points of interest, security, society and culture, tips for businesswomen, transportation, and travel essentials. Informe Academico Spanish-language and bilingual newspaper including magazine and journal articles.

College initiatives supporting diversity and inclusion.

Chief Diversity Officer at LCC Develops and oversees comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategies, objectives and initiatives. Recommends and participates in implementing strategies to diversify the campus community, and helps develop and implement training for faculty and staff to improve global and cultural competence. Oversees the College’s Multicultural Center and related activities.

Centre for Engaged Inclusion Build a community that is inclusive, and to educate in order to engage individuals from diverse perspectives. Engages a wide audience about critical issues that reflect the needs of the individual, local and global communities. Develops a variety of series that addresses and examines complex social problems and encourages reflective dialogue among students, faculty, and administrators.

Future Directions Increase acquisition of diversity-related materials. Assign a diversity subject specialist. Collection diversity assessment plan and training. More diversity-related Library programming. Work with the College’ Chief Diversity Officer and diversity groups on campus.

THANK YOU!!!!