Unpacking the Diversity Residency
by CKZ Shareef
An early indicator of how much I needed to learn about residencies in general and diversity residencies in particular occurred during a casual conversation within my first two weeks on the job. When I introduced myself to a colleague as the Strategic Initiatives Librarian, I was briskly corrected. “You’re the diversity resident.”
I nodded a yes and our conversation remained pleasant. But I felt the almost imperceptible weight of something not said, a vague condescension. I couldn’t shake the exchange. I felt I had been patronized but I didn’t understand why. I had accepted the Strategic Initiatives Librarian/Diversity Resident position. Strategic Initiatives Librarian was as much a part of my title as Diversity Resident.
As someone who does not like not knowing, I did what librarians do best – I looked it up.
I suspect more established librarians and administrators assume that all diversity residency applicants will have researched diversity residency programs. But I also suspect, now knowing more about my own pool of fellow applicants, that many of us likely did not. While I researched enough to know that my university had at least one other resident before me, I did not know that its program fit within a larger movement, nor did I fully learn the diversity residency’s history and purpose.
Some institutions with residency programs (but not all) provide much of this on their website. The University of Delaware’s residency program, for example, was established in 1984 and is believed to be the oldest post-MLS diversity residency program in the country (Alston, 2016; Program History – Pauline A. Young Residency, n.d.). Named after Pauline A. Young, a civil rights leader, educator, author, and librarian, the program’s website offers a history of the residency and a snapshot of the current residents’ specializations and focuses. It also displays an ACRL Diversity Alliance badge and clearly states its purpose as being “to increase the diversity of professional staff at the Library and to encourage the involvement of under-represented racial and ethnic minorities in academic librarianship,” which is language adopted from the ACRL’s Diversity Alliance mission. (About the Program – Pauline A. Young Residency, n.d.).
The webpage for the University of Louisville’s residency experience, on the other hand, focuses primarily on the current iteration. It does not provide a history of the institution’s residency, display the ACRL Diversity Alliance badge, or provide a commitment to increasing Black Indigenous People of Color (BIPOC) representation in academic librarianship. Emphasizing three mentored experiences that “enable the resident to explore current and emerging career paths in academic librarianship” is not bad; it just makes it harder for applicants to understand the intention of the position. (UofL Libraries, n.d.)
Further complicating the residency experience is the vastly different resident experiences encountered. Increasingly, librarian and information science professionals add to a growing body of literature around this effort to diversify the profession. Learning first-hand accounts of current and former residents from around the country continues to be eye-opening. Stories range from often being confused with interns to unwittingly serving as the face of their institution’s commitments to diversity, equity, and inclusion; from the tales of the precarity of the position to completing the residency without the professional development skills to secure a new opportunity. Residents are not always viewed as post-degree professionals. (Alston, 2016; Hu & Patrick, 2006; Velez et al., 2021)
To help address disparities in residency programs, ACRL’s Residency Interest Group (RIG) developed a Diversity Residency Toolkit in 2019 and made it publicly available in 2021. The toolkit provides institutions with “guidance for a residency program from its inception to its completion and beyond.” (Diversity Residency Toolkit – Residency Interest Group, n.d.). It includes a pre-residency checklist designed to assess an institution's current readiness for a resident as well as guidelines for incorporating a mentorship component to the residency.
Thankfully, my experience during these first 10 months has felt largely collegial and has included mentorship and professional development opportunities. My residency has also afforded me the chance to explore my own professional interests, to refine my pre-existing skill set, and to learn new ways of teaching information.
I look forward to regularly unpacking and processing it.
CKZ SHAREEF
is a lover of archives and literature. A champion of the digital and public humanities, she believes in the transformational powers of information and narrative. She currently serves as Strategic Initiatives Librarian/Diversity Resident for the University of Louisville.
LinkedIn: Courtney Shareef
Works Cited
About the Program – Pauline A. Young Residency. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2023, from https://library.udel.edu/residency/program/
Alston, J. (2016). Interns or Professionals? A Common Misnomer Applied to Diversity Resident Librarians Can Potentially Degrade and Divide. In R. Hankins & M. Juarez (Eds.), Where are all the Librarians of Color: The Experiences of People of Color in Academia (pp. 71–93). Library Juice Press.
Diversity Residency Toolkit – Residency Interest Group. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2023, from https://acrl.ala.org/residency/diversity-residency-toolkit/
Hu, S. S., & Patrick, D. E. (2006). Our experience as minority residents: Benefits, drawbacks, and suggestions. College & Research Libraries News, 67(5), 297–300.
Program History – Pauline A. Young Residency. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2023, from https://library.udel.edu/residency/history/
Strategic Initiatives Librarian (Diversity Residency Program): Home. (n.d.). Retrieved October 17, 2023, from https://library.louisville.edu/residency/home
Velez, L., Alston, J., Blas, N., Bradshaw, K., Duffus, O., Eads, D., Holmes, G., & Patterson, O. (2021). Mapping the residency program landscape. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 47(5), 102389. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2021.102389