Are We Doing Enough?: Four Stories of Diversity in Library
Collections
Regina GongHead of Technical Services & SystemsLansing 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• 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 SearchSubject Number of Titles % from Total
Collection (371,212)
GLBTQ 1,133 0.3African American* 5,303 1.43People with Disabilities 1,181 0.4Arab* 551 0.4Asian* 317 Hispanic* 652 Native American/American Indian 14 Women* 7,369 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
• 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.