Cultural competence and library leadership

As someone currently working as a library paraprofessional, I don’t know what’s “in the cards” for me as my library career unfolds. Will I seek or be called to formal leadership?

Even without knowing whether or not formal leadership awaits in my professional future, I can appreciate a perspective by the Kansas Leadership Center, which is that “Anybody can exercise leadership. It’s something that you do, it’s something that you can get better at. It’s like a muscle that you can train” (2020, 01:20).

Wilkins-Jordan and Hussey emphasized the importance of understanding concepts that are related to leadership so that you can be able to “lead from any position in an organization” (2019, p. 76). And the KLC envisioned a “culture of leadership” in which “it becomes possible to imagine all sorts of people exercising leadership” (2020, 02:33) — whether or not leadership is enshrined in their job description.

To exercise leadership within the field of librarianship, one activity that I anticipate having to do is developing cultural competence. According to Hussey, an integral part of providing LIS services to a library’s community “is an understanding of the diversity of the community and how that diversity influences needs and expectations” (2019, p. 197). And the Rubins, describing an “increased heterogeneity” in a library’s population (2020, p. 321), emphasized the importance of LIS professionals developing cultural competence.

At the same time, according to Rubin and Rubin, a library’s professional labor force “seldom reflects the diversity of the communities served” (2020, p. 322).

“To be culturally competent, librarians must create collections and services that reflect diverse communities, appreciate different cultures, create a place where different cultures feel comfortable, and provide open accessibility through access, outreach, culturally relevant signage, and staff trained to be welcoming and respectful” (Ouvrard-Prettol, cited by Rubin & Rubin, 2020, pp. 321-322).

I embrace the idea that libraries must serve an increasingly diverse society and I have poured nearly 10 years of effort into creating a welcoming space in the library where I work. At the same time, I feel ambivalent about an expectation to be perceived as welcoming, specifically because “approachability is determined not by staff, but by patrons” (Kern and Woodard, cited by Montoya and Polkinghorne, 2023, p. 37).

I’ve written before of how an aura of “approachability” may be something that a librarian has little control over. “There may also be variables in a potential patron’s life that we don’t even know about, a past experience or trauma that led to them forming a negative impression and caused them to prematurely judge us based upon our appearance” (Parkhill, 2024, para. 2).

Being perceived as “approachable” is a loaded subject for me because in my case, being autistic, I find it difficult to accurately gauge how other people might perceive me.

References:
Hussey, L.K. (2019). Diversity. In L.K. Hussey & D.L. Velasquez (Eds.), Library management 101: A practical guide [2nd ed.] (pp. 197-206). ALA Editions.

Kansas Leadership Center (2020, Feb 19). What is leadership? [Video]. Youtube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YgrSeoSSss&t=5s

Montoya, L. & Polkinghorne, S. (2023). Getting past “approachability.” In S.R. Kostelecky, L. Townsend, & D.A. Hurley (Eds.), Hopeful visions, practical actions: Cultural humility in library work (pp. 35-46). ALA Editions.

Parkhill, C.M. (2024, Oct. 26). Burden of ‘approachability’ in librarianship. Cynthia Parkhill. https://cynthiaparkhill.blogspot.com/2024/10/burden-of-approachability-in.html

Rubin, R.E. & Rubin, R.G. (2020). Foundations of library and information science [5th ed.]. ALA Neal-Schuman.

Wilkins-Jordan, M. & Hussey, L.K. Leadership. (2019). In L.K. Hussey & D.L. Velasquez (Eds.), Library management 101: A practical guide [2nd ed.] (pp. 75-84). ALA Editions.