You have probably heard it several times already in the last few weeks but allow me to say, “Welcome, ‘Noles!”
One of our goals at FSU Libraries is to be the physical and virtual heart of the university, serving as a center of the intellectual community. In our mission to support and enhance learning, teaching, research, and service at FSU, we value critical thinking and healthy discussion, innovation, trust, diversity, collegiality, and inclusion.[i] We provide physical space for you to collaborate, and we can assist you to find and evaluate quality information. We’re here to help, so please bring us your questions.
There is an awe-inspiring variety of people at FSU. First-year students this Fall semester come from 46 countries, all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. [ii] In Fall 2022, FSU students came from a total of 129 countries in addition to every one of the United States.[iii] We are thousands of students, faculty, staff, and administrators from diverse cultures and different communities. Each of us is a complex mix of intersecting backgrounds, circumstances, and narratives. We each have perspectives and beliefs that are informed by these life experiences: pleasant and unpleasant, inherited or chosen. Each of us has a different story to tell, but together we are the FSU community.
So as the semester gets into full-swing, I invite you to consider the opportunities that such diversity offers you here at FSU. Listen to someone else’s story or take into account a different perspective; and always remember to treat each other with dignity, because each of us belongs here. We are all FSU Seminoles.
This Pride Month, we’d like to honor the contribution the LGBTQ+ community has made to literature and to FSU Libraries. We had the opportunity to interview Haley McGuyre, a Graduate Assistant with Special Collections, and discuss their experience working on the LGBTQ+ Oral Histories Project at FSU Libraries. The full interview can be found below.
We are celebrating Asian and Pacific American Heritage this month. Congress proclaimed a week of May in 1979 as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Week, and in 1992, it designated May as Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month. The month of May was chosen to commemorate the first Japanese immigrants coming to the United States on May 7, 1843, and the Golden Spike Day of May 10, 1869 when Chinese workers contributed tremendously to complete the first transcontinental railroad in the United States.
Over one hundred years have passed since Angel Island, a counterpoint to Ellis Island, was built on the West Coast. It was used as an immigration detention center during the Asian exclusion era. Today, the estimated number of AAPI population in the U.S. is 24.2 million, and according to the U.S. Census Bureau Population Estimate, Asian Americans are one of the fastest-growing racial or ethnic groups in the U.S. Over the years, AAPIs have contributed to shaping the identity of the nation. They have confronted persistent exclusion and inequity in domestic policies and social practices, and yet contributed to the nation’s economy, science and technology, and culture and arts. They fought not only against discrimination and violence in the nation, but also in many wars to protect the nation. Yet, their challenges and struggles, and contributions to and legacies in U.S. history and culture have not been well-recognized or educated. It was only last month when the very first bill mandating a curriculum of Asian American History in public schools passed.
Every year, the FSU Libraries and the Office of Faculty Development and Advancement host FSU Author’s Day to celebrate the published accomplishments by FSU faculty and staff. This year, in lieu of a reception, we are honoring our authors digitally.
“Every year since we began the FSU Authors Day celebration, people have asked ‘Why the book?’ It is true that FSU faculty publish many more articles than books and that they publish other things, too: films, podcast series, websites, datasets, concerts, and exhibits. However, the book is perhaps the longest-lived form of academic communication and idea exchange,” said Margaret Wright-Cleveland, Office of Faculty Development and Advancement’s director of faculty development. “Its physical presence has grown with the times (e-books and interactive books) while its cultural importance reaches back centuries. These books by FSU authors will bring ideas and beauty to colleagues, students, and the general public for years. We celebrate the effort, the accomplishment, and the conversation. Congratulations, FSU faculty authors.”
The published works displayed below represent endless hours of research and learning as well as sacrifice, dedication, and grit. They also showcase the diversity and variety of scholarship at Florida State University. We congratulate the authors on their hard work and significant contributions to scholarship!
“The Libraries are delighted to recognize and celebrate our FSU Authors. The creation of new knowledge and scholarship is an important achievement and it is especially appropriate for the Libraries to recognize and honor our faculty and preserve their scholarly works,” said Gale Etschmaier, dean of FSU Libraries.
RECOGNIZING THE PUBLISHED WORK OF FSU FACULTY AND STAFF
Spoiler Alert: A Critical Guide Aaron Jaffe English Department
The Popular Literature Committee was honored to have received an F.S.U. President’s Diversity and Inclusion Mini-Grant for the second year in 2018-2019. We have finally received the last order of books to add to the Popular Literature collection that highlight or are written by and about people from diverse backgrounds and often underrepresented groups. We in the Pop Lit committee hope you will enjoy these works.
Newly added titles are shown below, and can be found in the Pop Lit section next to Starbucks on the first floor of Strozier Library.
Florida State University Libraries welcomes its first cohort of the university’s new Diversity Resident Librarian Program, which aims to increase the number of qualified academic librarians from members of traditionally underrepresented groups.
In alignment with Florida State’s strategic plan, the goals of the program are attaining more diversity of thought in program development and libraries practices and increasing agility in serving diverse student and faculty populations.
“We were looking for early career librarians who could offer us unique perspectives while we provide them with opportunities and assignments that will help them hone their skills in academic librarianship,” said Susannah Miller, interim dean of FSU Libraries and associate dean of administration.
During their three-year appointments, the four resident librarians will have the opportunity to develop competencies and skills in the areas of higher education librarianship. The program will concentrate on providing services to students and faculty, libraries operations including acquisition and collection management, special collections, and areas of strategic focus such as technology and digital scholarship.
“We hope that this program will open up opportunities for residents to begin long-term careers as academic librarians,” said Bridgett Birmingham, FSU’s diversity and inclusion librarian. “We are doing our part here at FSU Libraries to make sure that our academic libraries better reflect the diverse communities that we serve.”
The cohort also will engage in libraries practices, including faculty assembly activities, professional development, work teams and management meetings.
Each resident will be placed in a functional area where they will further hone their skills. Experienced librarians will provide mentorship and guidance to the residents specific to their needs and skill levels, and the residents will work with members of senior management on career-focused individual development plans.
Meet the residents:
Theresa Arias
Arias completed her Master of Library and Information Science degree at the University of Washington, and she will complete a Master of Arts in History with an Archival Administration Certificate from the University of Texas at Arlington this summer. Arias’ professional and research interests include information literacy, especially in underserved populations, and diversity and inclusion in collection development in archives and academic libraries.
Michael Mohkamkar
Mohkamkar is a graduate of the University of North Texas with a Master of Science inLibrary Science and Master of Arts in Linguistics. Before coming to FSU, he worked at the Dallas Public Libraries. His research interests include library usage by international and other minority student groups and working to promote accessibility of academic library materials.
Mallary Rawls
Rawls comes from the LeRoy Collins Main Library in Tallahassee, where she served as a Youth Services Information Professional for two years. She completed her Bachelor of Arts degree in interdisciplinary humanities and earned her Master of Library & Information Science, both from FSU. Her research interest includes information literacy, open access resources and increasing diversity and inclusion in academic libraries and research.
Dave Rodriguez
Before coming to FSU Libraries, Rodriguez spent nearly a decade working in film and audiovisual media preservation and exhibition. After graduating from New College of Florida (‘09), he earned an MA in film and media studies from the University of Florida (‘11), where he first began working with media collections. Rodriguez went on to attend The L. Jeffrey Selznick School of Film Preservation at George Eastman Museum, where he later served as an instructor and chief projectionist of the Motion Picture Department. He managed the archive at The Center for Moving Image Arts at Bard College before returning to his hometown of Miami in 2015. There, Rodriguez worked as an archival film projectionist in arthouse cinemas, as a technician at Continental Film & Digital Laboratory and in Special Collections at University of Miami Libraries. His research interests include digital stewardship, media archaeology, media art preservation and developing open educational resources and outreach in these areas.
To learn more about the Diversity Resident Librarian Program, contact Bridgett Birmingham at bbirmingham@fsu.edu.
On November 2, 2001, the General Conference of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) adopted the Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity in Paris, France. This Declaration defines “Cultural Diversity” or “Multiculturalism” as the harmonious co-existence and interaction of different cultures, where “culture should be regarded as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group, and that it encompasses, in addition to art and literature; lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs”. This Declaration lead to the United Nations first ever celebration of the United Nations Year for Cultural Heritage. In December 2002, the 57th Session of the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 57/249 that declared May 21 each year as the World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development. This day is intended to give an opportunity to help communities understand the value of cultural diversity and learn how to live together. It’s an occasion to promote world culture and highlight the significance of diversity as an agent of inclusion and positive change. It celebrates not only the richness of the world’s cultures, but the essential role of intercultural dialogue for achieving peace and sustainable development.
This is important to libraries for many reasons. Libraries serve diverse interests and communities. We function as learning, cultural, and information centers driven by our commitment to the principles of fundamental freedoms and equity of access to information and knowledge for all. This point was also buttressed in UNESCO’s first ever Cultural Diversity Publication Series, launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002, in which UNESCO states that libraries and cultural centers, as part of their new missions, must “strive to promote the actors and expressions of cultural diversity in such a way as to ensure that as many people as possible are exposed – and enjoy access – to the wealth of that diversity”.
These values were further expanded on in the IFLA/UNESCO Multicultural Library Manifesto that stipulates that each individual has the right to a full range of library and information services, and that libraries should adhere to 4 main principles of cultural diversity:
Serve all members of the community without discrimination based on cultural and linguistic heritage;
Provide information in appropriate languages and scripts;
Give access to a broad range of materials and services reflecting all communities and needs;
Employ staff to reflect the diversity of the community, who are trained to work with and serve diverse communities.
This Manifesto supports ALA’s interpretations of “Diversity Standards: Cultural Competency for Academic Libraries” (2012), which advocates to “support diversity skills training and diversity education—including the exploration of social justice, privilege and oppression, and fear and anger around cultural diversity issues—in a safe environment that allows for discussion and reflection”. Libraries are in the unique position to celebrate culture’s manifold forms, from the tangible and intangible, to the diversity of cultural expressions, and reflect on how these contribute to dialogue, mutual understanding, and the social, environmental and economic vectors of sustainable development. The core activities of library and information services for culturally and linguistically diverse communities are central, not “separate” or “additional”, and should always be designed to meet local or specific needs.
In 2013, The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations (UNAOC) in partnership with UNESCO and a wide coalition of partners from corporations to civil society launched the world campaign “Do One Thing for Diversity and Inclusion”, aimed at engaging people around the world to Do One Thing to support Cultural Diversity and Inclusion. This campaign:
Raises awareness worldwide about the importance of intercultural dialogue, diversity and inclusion;
Build a world community of individuals committed to supporting diversity with real and everyday-life gestures;
Combat polarization and stereotypes to improve understanding and cooperation among people from different cultures.
Do one thing today to support cultural diversity. Read a book by an author from a different culture, reach out to a diverse staff and let them know how much you appreciate their presence at work, be creative, and as always, feel free to reach out to the FSU Libraries Diversity and Inclusion Committee with your ideas.
Written by Mohamed Berray, Social Sciences Librarian | Coordinator for Government Information, Florida State University Libraries
IFLA/UNESCO Multicultural Library Manifesto: “The Multicultural Library – a gateway to a cultural diverse society in dialogue: https://www.ifla.org/node/8976
UNESCO Cultural Diversity Series No. 1. Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity: A Vision, A Conceptual Platform, A Pool of Ideas for Implementation, A New Paradigm. A Document for the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, 26 August – 4 September, 2002. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001271/127162e.pdf.
