Working with immigrant communities to promote social justice: New ways of teaching library service

Abstract

This poster presentation is a summary updated of the recent 2020 ALISE Conn@ct mini-grant project: Integrating Immigrants into the LIS Workforce: A Pilot, Collaborative Project received by the REFORMA Education committee in collaboration with REFORMA Mid-Atlantic Chapter, Prince George's County Memorial Library System and Montgomery County Public Libraries. This grant offered an opportunity to develop and integrate a social justice oriented approach for advancing education for future LIS professionals through research and development of a self-paced mini course on the introduction to librarianship for highly skilled immigrants. In response to gaps within current practice, this pilot recruitment project served as a model for progressive community action within the LIS field. There are currently limited avenues or resources for immigrants and refugees to deeply learn about U.S. librarianship as a career path. The project encourages LIS faculty and library professionals to include substantive content on how globalization, self-actualization, and immigration are intertwined through use of a specific framework. As required of the grant recipients, we were encouraged to present the project in a poster presentation at the 2021 ALISE Conference and therefore offer this submission to fulfill that requirement.