Scholarly Article #2: Cultural Competence

CULTURAL COMPETENCE: A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK FOR LIBRARY AND INFORMATION SCIENCE PROFESSIONALS by Patricia M. Overall

One of the great points this article makes is about how libraries create multicultural programs without really consulting or knowing the needs of those they hope to serve. On this same note, the author writes, "Among the reasons cited for low library use by members of minority groups are inadequate collections, services, and staffing. On staffing, for example, minority library users note the lack of adequate multilingual staff to assist minority patrons and the lack of library professionals who are knowledgeable and sensitive to language and cultural issues." This is one of the great points this article makes; is about the level of cultural competence most libraries have. Most libraries do take great aims to be culturally compent, but many still fail short of really recogizing what it means.

Another interesting theory in this article is the diagram that shows that general psychology has an underlying assumption that mind and culture are different "spheres" (if you will), but cultural psychology holds to the assumption that mind and culture are linked together, and cannot be seperated. I found this interesting. How many of us have mannerisms or do things unconciously based on the norms of our culture and the values that our culture taught us? The article also mentioned how many cultural norms librarians may not be aware of...such as a person's culturally take on things like even space and gestures. How many of us have our "comfort zones"? Many of us too, I'm sure, have personal spaces where we feel as if someone is invading that space. I wonder how much of our needing even a certain amount of "personal space" might relate to how we were brought up and our cultural values. It is very interesting to me that even culture may run that deep; that it may be ingrained into us and cannot be seperated.

The author suggests that for the LIS professional to develop cultural competence requires three skill-set using inward and outward perspectives: 1) culture domain, which includes developing one's own cultural sense and sense of others; 2) The language domain, which includes building language skills, and having multiliteracies; 3) Ethnicity, which includes recognizing and encouraging rules, regulations, and policies of different ethnicities. I feel if a LIS professional took these steps, even a few of them, they would be closer and better off to really understanding multicultural issues in the library.

This article just helped open me up to how deep the culture issue is, and got me thinking of it in a very pyschological way. It also got me thinking of the way I currently interact with different people, being that I work at a drugstore as a manager. I think about how many customers I sometimes had a hard time understanding and I wonder if I had treated them with enough respect as I struggled to make sense of the words. I hope I have treated them right, but this article has definitely made me understand culture on a deeper level.

References:

Overall, P.M. (2009). Cultural competence: A conceptual framework for library and information science professionals. Library Quarterly, 79 (2) 175-204.