How MLIS Programs Prepare Students to Serve Diverse Populations: The North American Context

According to the American Library Association (ALA), organizational sustainability requires social equity, and serving diverse populations is mandated in the ALA Library Bill of Rights and its Policy Manual on Diversity. Preparation to serve diverse and marginalized populations is a key ingredient in creating the type of resilient leaders needed to promote and sustain systematic and lasting changes in LIS. Although the field promotes services to diverse populations through recruitment and retention of librarians, staff, faculty, and students from diverse backgrounds, there is still much work to do, and LIS programs must support students in obtaining the knowledge and skills they will need to develop inclusive library collections, services, and programs that reflect diverse patrons’ lives and needs and understanding of the experiences of people whose lived experience differs from their own. This study analyzed courses that prepare students in North American ALA-accredited Master’s of Library and Information Science (MLIS) programs to serve diverse populations. All programs’ websites were examined to identify relevant courses, and 28 syllabi were analyzed for the study. The researchers employed descriptive statistics and content analysis to describe course offerings and identify course topics through themes emerging from the syllabi. Overall, the study found that course offerings and rotations vary considerably across programs and that the courses focus on how information organizations serve diverse users’ information needs in the context of access, equity, and diversity and professionalism in LIS. The findings from this study add to previous research on this topic and provide data that can inform MLIS curriculum development.