Competency 3

Competency 3: recognize the social, cultural and economic dimensions of information use

Information is affected by the world around us. In fact the world around us is our information and our information is literally, who we are. We are influenced by the past, present, and future as well as religion, culture and belief systems. But just as information is a product of all of these things, so is how we access it and use it. And in Information Science there is no separating social, cultural, and economic differences when serving people. Whether we find ourselves in a wealthy community, an economically challenged community, a culturally mixed area, or even an district that speaks very little English, Libraries (and all the workers within that Library) need to pay special attention to their communities needs. Having sensitivity to culture and economic differences can make the difference in our Library's functions on almost every level.

Social differences are embraced in our country and help make it the amazing place that it is, but sometimes it is difficult to understand cultures that our not our own. Because our job is, as Librarians, to protect information for ALL and to serve ALL equally, it is in our greatest interest to be aware and serve ALL differences such as varying ages, political affiliations, race, religious beliefs, sexual orientation, educational levels, what people do for a living, even family choice differences. Our Country may be based on fair and equal rights, but we have not fully realized our potential for tolerance as a Nation. However, tolerance is the cornerstone of Intellectual Freedom, serving the public, and protecting the information that is "who we are." For example, in the program I work for, there are patrons who comes from religious and cultural differences where husbands do not approve of wives to taking classes outside of the home. For them, attending the Library for assistance is a delicate and extreme risk in the attempt for both literacy skills and information about their new country. But they are fiercely excited to learn about America, learn the language, and everything they can. But an inability to be sensitive and understand their unique cultural differences while also being respectful of those differences can make or break the successful interaction in almost every area of library service. Even while developing collections, planning programming, and/or other library services, understanding your patron and community is at the heart of what we do.

But let's not forget the impact of economic differences. As if the cultural and societal variations, that make our Country so amazing, weren't challenging enough, economic degrees of wealth are even more challenging. Coupled with culture and social contrasts, economics affect our service, and the way patrons approach information, at the same time. Both the wealth of a community and it's budget affect its services. And patrons, from the spectrum of economic differences, will access information in contrasting ways. While an affluent patron from a well to do community may be more comfortable searching for information, a patron from a more economically challenged neighborhood may never have set foot in a library, and in doing so, could literally change his or her very life! But, as tempting it is to want to assume that a patron that may fit into a stereotype (even if you mean well) I truly believe and know that adhering to ANY stereotype while dealing with people from any walk of life, any side of the track, will only be a disservice to the person and yourself. You can never tell who a person is from statistics and textbooks. One can only be prepared and informed on cultural, social, and economical differences, but never assume any person fits into a general stereotype when trying to serve the public. This, to me, is the key to understanding the library's purpose as a whole. Realizing that this may be the only source of information a patron may have, or the fact that your service could change someone's life (in unique ways), are the reasons why Librarian's exist.

In the artifacts below I show how my studies have reflected both my knowledge and understanding of these complex dimensions of library science and with this understanding lifts the theoretical job into one that is both personal and meaningful. As a librarian, you are in the position to really help people, and having core values and an understanding of these issues are what makes Librarians and Libraries relevant and needed now and forever. My experiences at both San Jose State University and at work in the Literacy department of the Beverly Hills Public Library have afforded me a keen sense of understanding and empathy, as well as, a deeper understanding of how information use is affected by social, cultural, and economic difference.

Demonstrative Works:

In Artifact 1, I present my term paper for LIBR 275, Library Services for Racially and Economically Diverse Communities. I specifically enrolled in this class because, as an employee in the literacy department of the Beverly Hills Public Library, I became acutely aware of the affect economics, race, and culture had on library services. Furthermore, working in Beverly Hills I found that the wealth in the area affected the library in many ways, notably by the assumption that it was a wealthy area that had both no need of literacy services and an overflow of the general fund. Neither are true. The need for literacy services was two fold. We have many people who have never learned to read, and even more who are refugees from Iran. The Persian and Israeli cultures drive the library and often affect programming and collection development. Furthermore the ESL culture and need for literacy is extremely high. In LIBR 275 I gained a deeper understanding of culture and economics in the library as well as got to see how libraries are affected in less "well-to-do" area. Being a witness to the economic struggles in a library where donation and support is high, one can only imagine the affect economically depressed or at-risk neighborhood libraries must go through. Something I noticed was that not only are there underserved communities but even within the library there are underserved groups. I found that in almost every scenario the most at-risk and underserved group were teens. For economically challenged areas as well as high immigrant communities, teens were continually overlooked, underfunded, and underserved. This paper attempts to bring this topic to light. While teen services are starting to take hold in libraries (through grants and new research), economics, outreach, community, cultural differences and even library workers themselves, are still affecting our ability to serve teens.

In Artifact 2 is the website for the library programming class I begun while working in the literacy department of the Beverly Hills Library. LiFT is an acronym for Literacy For Technology. I created this program while working at the library as a means to teach our literacy/ESL student basic computer skills while considering their cultural difference and language skills at the same time. It is difficult enough to come a department and ask for help to read, but once aquiring these skills, adult students were still lost in a world of technological inundation (in English no less). Our predominant culture in Beverly Hills speaks Farsi as a first language which uses completely different characters making learning the keyboard even more difficult. In this class I created a conjunction of a class website, video, handouts that are picture rich, and one-on-one assistance in a class of about eight at a time, to create a six week-intensive basic skills class. The blog I created was our virtual classroom with links to games found for learning on the web. The programming is free of charge and is currently in it's fourth session! A wait-list is almost always there as our adult literacy students seem to so desperately need this new service. The successful creation and teaching of this class illustrates my skills and ability to recognize the social, cultural and economic dimensions of information use.

Artifact 1: Final Paper, LIBR 275 Library Services for Racially and Economically Diverse Communities

Artifact 2: Literacy Programming-Creation of LiFT Program