Hopeful Visions, Practical Actions

Cultural Humility in Library Work

Sarah R. Kostelecky, Lori Townsend, David A. Hurley

• Publisher: ALA Editions
• Year: 2023
• Print ISBN: 9780838938300
• eBook ISBN: 9780838991497
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Cultural humility offers a renewing and transformative framework for navigating interpersonal interactions in libraries, whether between patrons and staff or staff members with one another. It foregrounds a practice of critical self-reflection and commitment to recognizing and redressing structural inequities and problematic power imbalances. This collection, the first book-length treatment of this approach in libraries, gathers contributors from across the field to demonstrate how cultural humility can change the way we work and make lasting impacts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries. This book's chapters explore such topics as

• how Indigenous adages can be tools for reflection and guidance in developing cultural humility;
• the experiences of two Black librarians who are using cultural humility to change the profession;
• new perspectives on core concepts of customer service;
• rethinking policies and practices in libraries both large and small;
• using cultural humility in approaching collection development and creating resource guides;
• what cultural humility can look like for a tribal librarian working in a tribal college library; and
• reflecting on cultural humility itself and where it is going.

Table of contents

• Foreword by Mark A. Puent
• Acknowledgments