Librarians

LIBRARIANS

The librarian I interviewed felt that in order to offer better customer service, diversity training would be very useful. Indeed, when there is a basic understanding of culture and language, a better rapport is built with the patron. For example, according to census data, more than 1/2 a million Latinos live in Washington state. This accounts for the state's largest minority group. In order to identify the needs of a growing Latino population, some of whom speak little or no English, it is very important to have at least a basic knowledge of culture. However, there are very few Spanish speaking library staff members within KCLS to accomplish this. If we can identify major languages spoken and offer a diversity training with a language element, librarians and library support staff across the entire system would be better equipped to assist our diverse populations. Indeed, as the world becomes more diverse, libraries have an obligation to make changes as well, even if the only way to accomplish this is to offer more diversity trainings.