Less than 3% of librarians and archivists in the United States are Black. Less than 2% are Indigenous peoples.
It’s not hard, says Jessica Salow, to figure out why.
“The reason why we don’t have a high representation of BIPOC people within this profession is because many folks who are in that age range of wanting to figure out what they want to do for their career don’t understand that they can become a librarian or archivist because our profession does not reach into high schools, community colleges or anything along those lines to actually tell folks that this profession is something that they can pursue if they want to,” said Salow, an assistant archivist of Black Collections at Arizona State University.
ASU program aims to add more diversity to library field