Of course librarians can play basketball!

I always take the time to look over the references of the articles I read and found one that was very intriguing listed on page 181 of Latinos and Librarianship by Salvador Guereña and Edward Erazo.  Titled Can Librarians Play Basketball?, I just knew I had to check it out.

It is a 1999 article about the 'newly-formed' Spectrum Initiative, an effort by the American Library Association (ALA) to recruit individuals from underrepresented groups to consider an advanced degree in library science. To that end, a series of posters and other recruitment materials had been produced showing diverse groups of people in non-library settings with the tagline: Library Careers are as diverse as You!

One poster featured a young man holding a basketball, hence the title of the article.

The Spectrum Initiative is a scholarship and mentorship program. Student Tracie Hall was one of the 50 students in the initial cohort who was interviewed for the article. I thought I would see if I could find out what she is doing now.

From the Florida State University/School of Information and Library Science website, I learned that Tracie is a member of their National Advisory Board for Project LEAD.  They posted a short biography so I also discovered that she is currently the Assistant Dean of the Graduate School of Library and Information Studies at Dominican University in River Forest, IL after serving a stint as the Director of the ALA Office of Diversity.  Prior to that, Tracie was the manager and community librarian of the Albany Branch of the Hartford Public Library and young adult librarian at the New Haven Free and Seattle Public Libraries. Wow!

I found a list of the other members of that original cohort on the ALA website and discovered that one of them attended the University of Arizona. Her name is Rita Pino-Vargas and she is mentioned in an article written in 2009 by then ALA president Camila Alire announcing the Spectrum Fundraising Presidential Initiative (a $1 million goal in support of the program).

According to Ms. Alire, Rita was (and may still be) the librarian at Sky City Community School/Pueblo of Acoma in New Mexico. She had volunteered with ALA in several capacities including serving on the Newberry, Caldecott and Pura Belpré award committees, and was also past president of Reforma’s New Mexico chapter.

My guess is that if I did a search for Knowledge River graduates, a University of Arizona program similar to the Spectrum Initiative, I would find similar results.

And those posters?  Though a very catchy marketing campaign, the authors suggest that the best recruitment tool is one-on-one: seeing potential in and personally encouraging a promising individual to consider/apply/participate/succeed. I suspect that this is as true today as it was back in 1999 when the article was first published.

References

Alire, C. (2009) Spectrum’s $1-Million Challenge. American Libraries Online. Retrieved from http://americanlibrariesmagazine.org/columns/presidents-message/spectrum’s-1-million-challenge

Watkins, C. & Abif, K. (1999). Can Librarians Play Basketball? American Libraries, 30(3), 58-61.