"Associations of color can take the responsibility of sharpening their tools for maximal benefit to minority library users as well as those who are trained or in training to support them," said Satia Orange, former director of the American Library Association's Office for Literacy and Outreach Service. She served as keynote speaker for "Sky is the Limit: Reaching Out to the Minority Communities of Users and Librarians," an Annual Conference program sponsored by the Chinese American Librarians Association.
"Library leaders need productive strategies to meet their communities' information goals," Orange said, "Unfortunately, too few seem to place diversity initiatives near the top of their lists for a number of understandable, but unfortunate, reasons."
Her recipe for how associations of color can best serve minority library communities include: partnerships, delivery of service models, and more support of the Joint Conference of Librarians of Color hosted by ALA's five ethnic caucuses; serving caucus member communities; and garnering respect from ALA by making your caucus' voice known.
The program also included a panel discussion featuring Rush Miller, university librarian at the Universiy of Pittsburgh; Karl Ku, director of National Central Library of Taiwan; Virginia Van Wynen Baeckler and Carol Quick, director and assistant director of Plainsboro (N. J.) Public Library; and Susan Hildreth, city librarian, Seattle Public Library.