Racial Microaggressions and Academic Libraries

Abstract

The abundance of articles, books, and conference papers on diversity in librarianship tend to focus on a few recurring themes: depictions of minorities in children’s literature, developing multicultural collections, or recruiting, mentoring, and retaining a diverse workforce. There is relatively little library literature, however, on racism within the profession itself. In this poster, the researcher seeks to answer two questions: 1) Do the experiences of minority librarians confirm the existence of racial microaggressions in the academic library environment? 2) If non-minority librarians also experience racial microaggressions, do they attribute these incidents to race or some other factor? The research presented in this poster is intended to provide a foundation upon which minority and non-minority librarians can begin a dialogue about racism within their academic institutions and within the profession.