Keren Dali, Nadia Caidi Receive ALA Award for “Diversity by Design”

May 20, 2018

Congratulations to Keren Dali (School of Library and Information Studies, University of Alberta) and Nadia Caidi (Faculty of Information, University of Toronto) on receiving the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award for their Library Quarterly article entitled “Diversity by Design.”

In this article, we introduce the concept of diversity by design. This concept is relevant to library and information science (LIS) education, professional environments, and partnership-based community engagements. Building on our experience as educators and researchers, we illustrate this concept in the context of LIS graduate education and invite readers to contemplate whether this concept makes sense to them and, if yes, how it works in their respective workplaces and communities. We interrogate the term “diversity,” bringing to light the multiplicity of contexts that give diversity meaning and life in our complex field. By so doing, we demonstrate that diversity, broadly conceived, is foundational to LIS and that discounting or underappreciating its pivotal function may have a disintegrating effect on our practice, scholarship, and education.

The ALA David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award recognizes recent articles that include significant new research related to the understanding and promotion of multiculturalism in libraries in North America. Works published within the last two years preceding the award application deadline are eligible to receive the award.

Dali and Caidi recipients of 2018 David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award

CHICAGO – Keren Dali, assistant professor at the School of Library and Information Studies at the University of Alberta, Canada and Nadia Caidi, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Information iSchool, are the recipients of the 2018 American Library Association (ALA) Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award for their article entitled “Diversity by Design.”

The David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award recognizes recent articles that include significant new research related to the understanding and promotion of multiculturalism in libraries in North America.  Works published within the last two years preceding the award application deadline are eligible to receive the award.

Dali and Caidis’ article examines the concept of “integral diversity” or the idea that diversity should be an indispensable element in a system such as a class or workplace, and that “removing this element would preclude the system from functioning properly.” Integrating diversity at the structural level would hinder its treatment as an appendage to LIS curricula, for instance. Rather, diversity would be treated like technology, which is taught as a core LIS course although, paradoxically, not all students will work in “technology-saturated environments.” Comparatively, more students will work in diverse workplaces and communities and as a result will require competence with diversity as a core professional skill.

The authors suggest communal partnerships and guest talks encompassing the course subject and diversity as practical examples of diversity by design.

The Award, consisting of $500 and a commemorative plaque, will be presented to Dali and Caidis during the EMIERT Chair’s Program at ALA’s 2018 Annual Conference in New Orleans.

For more information, please visit www.ala.org/emiert.

Founded in 1982, the Ethnic and Multicultural Information and Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) serves as a source of information for recommended ethnic and multilingual collections, services and programs.

(Via American Library Association)