Are We Doing Enough?: Four
Stories of Diversity in Library
Collections
Regina Gong
Head of Technical Services & Systems
Lansing Community College Library
Charleston Conference, November 6, 2015
• Located in downtown
Lansing, MI
• 3rd largest community
college in MI
• 15,842 enrollment for
Fall 2015 semester
• Library staff: 12 FT and
10 part-time
• $500K annual
collections budget
Collection Overview
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90,234 print books
265,294 electronic resources
18,416 streaming videos
5,834 AV materials
125 research databases
124 print periodicals and newspaper titles
50 iPads and 25 Kindle Fire for borrowing
LCC’s diversity profile snapshot
“LCC fosters cultural diversity and critical
thinking and the library collection reflects
cultural diversity and multiple controversial
points of view.”
- From LCC Library’s Collection Development Policy
Catalog Search
Subject
GLBTQ
African American*
People with Disabilities
Arab*
Asian*
Hispanic*
Native American/American Indian
Women*
Number of Titles
1,133
5,303
1,181
551
317
652
14
7,369
% from Total
Collection (371,212)
0.3
1.43
0.4
0.4
2
Special Collections
• READ Collection
– Lower level reading, ESL, ESOL students
• Career Collection
– Designed to serve students with easily accessible and understandable
sources for finding college and career related information.
Cultural Diversity Databases
• Discovering Collection
Contains book and magazine articles, creative works, primary
sources, and video and podcast resources covering core
curriculum areas: history, literature, science, social studies
and more.
• Global Issues in Context
Provides international viewpoints on a broad spectrum of
global issues, topics, and current events.
Cultural Diversity Databases
• Global Road Warrior
Covers 175 countries and addresses 22 categories of interest
to travelers, including business culture, communications,
demographics, money and banking, points of interest,
security, society and culture, tips for businesswomen,
transportation, and travel essentials.
• Informe Academico
Spanish-language and bilingual newspaper including
magazine and journal articles.
College initiatives supporting diversity
and inclusion.
Chief Diversity Officer at LCC
• Develops and oversees comprehensive diversity and inclusion
strategies, objectives and initiatives.
• Recommends and participates in implementing strategies to
diversify the campus community, and helps develop and
implement training for faculty and staff to improve global and
cultural competence.
• Oversees the College’s Multicultural Center and related
activities.
Centre for Engaged Inclusion
• Build a community that is inclusive, and to educate in
order to engage individuals from diverse perspectives.
• Engages a wide audience about critical issues that
reflect the needs of the individual, local and global
communities.
• Develops a variety of series that addresses and
examines complex social problems and encourages
reflective dialogue among students, faculty, and
administrators.
Future Directions
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Increase acquisition of diversity-related materials.
Assign a diversity subject specialist.
Collection diversity assessment plan and training.
More diversity-related Library programming.
Work with the College’ Chief Diversity Officer and
diversity groups on campus.
THANK YOU!!!!
Email: gongr1@lcc.edu
Twitter: @drgong