Minicourse Module 21: Assessing Your Current Practice
Approx time: 30 min
This minicourse module is an abridged version of Project READY’s Module 22: Assessing Your Current Practice. Follow the link to access the full module.
AFTER WORKING THROUGH THIS MODULE, YOU WILL BE ABLE TO:
- Assess your library’s responsiveness to the needs of BIYOC.
INTRODUCTION
After working through the previous modules, you should have a foundational understanding of how issues of race, bias, colonialism, and inequity come into play in libraries, as well as an understanding of how paradigms like cultural competence, cultural humility, racial and ethnic identity development, whiteness, equity, inclusion, and antiracism can help us work to transform our classrooms and libraries to address these issues. Beginning with this module, we offer a framework and strategies for assessing and transforming your practice.
READ
Read this report from the Association for Library Service to Children, The Importance of Diversity in Library Programs and Material Collections for Children [PDF].
THE CULTURALLY SUSTAINING LIBRARY WALK
The Culturally Sustaining Library Walk1 is designed to be a collaborative tool for librarians and other stakeholders to assess the library’s responsiveness to the needs of BIYOC. The goal of the Culturally Sustaining Library Walk is to identify strengths, to discover areas that need improvement, and to develop a path to achieve a culturally sustaining library program. It is an observation and planning document informed by research on culturally sustaining pedagogy and is based on the philosophy of creating a youth-centered library program. Find the library walk document linked here [PDF]. The Culturally Sustaining Library Walk steps are listed below. We have linked several PDFs of specific parts of the walk throughout the module.
Step 1: Form a team.
To be most effective, a team must conduct the Culturally Sustaining Library Walk. Team members might include the youth services librarian(s), parents or caregivers, community partners, and/or BIYOC. It is critical that BIYOC be part of the team.
Step 2: Develop collaborative beliefs/a vision of a culturally sustaining and equitable library program.
Meet as a team and have a conversation addressing the following question:
What is the library community’s vision for a culturally sustaining library program?
Step 3: Review the characteristics of culturally sustaining library programs.
Creating a culturally sustaining library program that fulfills your beliefs and vision involves developing quality in the following areas:
- Space
- Policies
- Staff
- Collections
- Instruction and programming
Here are more details on the specific characteristics encompassed in each area:
Library Space
Objective: The library’s physical and digital space should provide a welcoming environment that respects individuals and their cultures and allows diverse children and teens to express their learning and individuality.
Library Policies
Objective: Library policies should describe and support the mission and operation of an equitable, inclusive library program.
Library Staff
Objective: Library staff members should interact with BIYOC as individuals, set high expectations, and develop agency. Library staff members should advocate for BIYOC, value their voices, and continually work to improve their own knowledge.
Library Collections
Objective: Effective library collections should nurture the resolve of BIYOC, help them reconcile their different identities, and imagine their place in the world.
Library Instruction & Programming
Objective: Library instruction and programming should connect to the real world and support BIYOC’s action in their own communities. They should employ an inquiry-based model of instructional strategies that builds on the strengths and interests of BIYOC and leads to improved life outcomes.
Observation sheets with specific examples of what these characteristics look like in practice are linked later in the module.
Step 4: Select a focus for the Culturally Sustaining Library Walk.
The walk will be more effective if it is focused on one or two Focus Areas or questions. For example, you might ask: How well do the library resources meet the needs of our Latinx youth? As a team, decide which area(s) above are most critical to effectively move toward your vision of a culturally sustaining library program.
Step 5: Prepare observations and questions.
For each Focus Area, look at the examples of indicators that you might observe on the relevant observation sheets linked below. As a team, discuss the indicators until everyone has a shared understanding of what you might observe, or what information you might gather, to give a clear picture of what is happening in that area of focus. We have provided blank observation sheets (PDFs) for you to write in additional features as necessary.
- Observation sheet: Space
- Observation sheet: Policies
- Observation sheet: Staff
- Observation sheet: Collections
- Observation sheet: Instruction
- Blank observation sheet
Step 6: Culturally Sustaining Library Walk.
Once you have scheduled the Walk and assembled the team (including the librarian, staff, community partners, parents, children, or others), you will want to pick the appropriate focus sheets from above and make individual observations. You may also choose to use the interview sheets below:
Step 7: De-briefing/long-term planning.
Once the Culturally Sustaining Library Walk has been completed, reassemble the team to share each participant’s Wonderings/Observations and then look at the observations in relation to Beliefs/Vision and research on culturally sustaining pedagogy. Together, team members decide the library’s Next Steps and outline a plan for continued development of the library program by filling out the Long-Term Planning Sheet (PDF) linked below.
The next several modules provide justification, ideas, and strategies for improving your practice in each of the five areas identified in the Effective Library Services for Diverse Children and Youth framework. You can work through them for your own learning; you can also focus on those that address the areas you chose to focus on for your Culturally Sustaining Library Walk.
- Home Page
- Section 1: Foundations
- Module 1: Introduction
- Module 2: History of Race and Racism
- Module 3: Defining Race & Racism
- Module 4: Implicit Bias & Microaggressions
- Module 5: Systems of Inequality
- Module 6: Indigeneity and Colonialism
- Module 7: Exploring Culture
- Module 8: Cultural Competence & Cultural Humility
- Module 9: Racial and Ethnic Identity Development
- Module 10: Unpacking Whiteness
- Module 11: Confronting Colorblindness and Neutrality
- Module 12: Equity Versus Equality, Diversity versus Inclusion
- Module 13: Allies & Antiracism
- Section 2: Transforming Practice
- Module 14: (In)Equity in the Educational System
- Module 15: (In)Equity in Libraries
- Module 16a: Building Relationships with Individuals
- Module 16b: Building Relationships with the Community
- Module 17: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
- Module 18: “Leveling Up” Your Instruction with the Banks Framework
- Module 19: Youth Voice & Agency
- Module 20: Talking about Race
- Module 21: Assessing Your Current Practice
- Module 22: Transforming Library Instruction
- Module 23: Transforming Library Space and Policies
- Module 24a: Transforming Library Collections Part 1
- Module 24b: Transforming Library Collections Part 2
- Module 25: Lifelong Learning for Equity
- This tool was adapted by Sandra Hughes-Hassell, Casey Rawson, Kimberly Hirsh, and Amanda Hitson from “The Library Learning Walk” developed by the New York City Department of Education, Office of Library Services, June 2004. Retrieved March 1, 2013. ↩︎
