Librarians Call for More Black Males in Field: Librarians issued a clarion call for substantially more Black males in their field this past weekend at the American Library Association’s annual conference in Anaheim, Calif.
Black men make up a dismal 0.5 percent, or 572 of the 110,000 of the nation’s librarians. And about 1 in 10 Black librarians are men, according to figures in an ALA diversity report issued last year, which were discussed in the ALA conference panel “An Endangered Species: The Black Male Librarians.”
“The need for Black male librarians is crucial given the lack of diversity of our library organizations,” says panelist Dr. Alma Dawson, the Russell Long Professor in Library and Information Science at Louisiana State University. “There is a great need for Black males as reflected in crime statistics, low levels of literacy, and other areas. Black male librarians can make a difference.”
The stereotype pervading American society that a librarian is an old White woman with glasses steers Black males away from the profession, says Damon Austin, agricultural sciences librarian at the University of Maryland and one of the experienced Black library professionals who participated in the panel.
