Self Assessment

This checklist is taken directly from the American Library Association website.  Please use this checklist in your library to discern if you are doing as much as possible to meet the needs of your diverse clientele. 

What You Can Do

Use this checklist as guide for assessing how your library is addressing equity and setting goals for improvement.

Our library. . .

Planning/Budget

 Has current demographics about our community/school/campus, including age, ethnicity, income and physical abilities.
 Has a strategic plan that addresses service for multicultural users and how to market those services to diverse groups.
 Has customer service and other policies that express its commitment to providing service and collections that are multicultural in all aspects-racial, linguistic, religious, gender, disability, political, geographic, age and socioeconomic.
 Has policies that protect the confidentiality of online users and their ability to obtain needed information.
 Allocates sufficient funds to serve all who could benefit from its services and plans for continual assessment and expansion of services.

Marketing/Outreach

 Incorporates multicultural outreach into established and emerging library services (e.g., instruction, reference, collection development, programming and digital library initiatives).
 Publishes an easy-to-use directory of public and private agencies, organizations and institutions that serve people with special needs and advocate on their behalf.
 Works in partnership with other agencies and organizations to develop and promote library resources to diverse groups such as seniors, English Language Learners and people with disabilities.
 Provides facilities and resources to groups that are addressing local equity issues such as racial equality, rights of persons with disabilities, pay equity and ending hunger in the community.
 Has established channels, such as an advisory committee, for collecting input and feedback from diverse groups.
 Assigns responsibility for outreach to people with special needs to specific staff members.
 Collaborates with teachers/faculty to develop projects and curricula that position the library as central to teaching and learning about diversity in all forms.
 Uses multicultural displays, programming and outreach to promote librarianship as a career.
 Reaches out to diverse groups by providing speakers and articles for newsletters about information literacy and library resources available to their members.
 Invites parents, religious leaders and representatives of diverse cultural groups to speak, perform or share their heritage.

Facilities/Equipment

 Is a welcoming place for all members of our community with signage and décor that reflects the multicultural make up of our community.
 Has adequate computer terminals, high speed connections and other technology.
 Has adequate access and traffic patterns for wheel chairs and strollers.
 Has a Web page that is friendly to users of various physical and mental abilities. (You can gauge its accessibility at http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp)
 Provides assistive and adaptive software and equipment and adds improvements as available.

Staff Development

 Has staff who are sensitive to cultural differences and skilled at communicating with library visitors in their native language.
 Educates staff in how best to serve people with deafness, blindness, mental illness, learning or other disabilities.
 Provides safe areas for internal and external assessment of library services and programs.
 Recruits, retains and develops a skilled and diverse workforce through professional development opportunities and continued learning.
 Recognizes and rewards staff efforts to provide exemplary service to diverse user groups.

Services

 Provides resources and serves as a referral source for adult learners and their families.
 Has collections and programming that promote understanding of people of varying abilities and cultures.
 Offers training for students, parents, seniors, faculty and others to help them develop technology/information literacy skills.
 Provides resource lists for children, teens and adults that educate about tolerance, equity, and the history and culture of all local populations.

Advocacy

 Maintains regular (not just at budget time) contact with key administrators, community leaders and funders to let them know about our library's services, successes and needs.
 Supports and prepares trustees, school board members, Friends and users in speaking out for funding, policies and legislation that protect public access to information at school, public and college and university libraries.
 Works to educate the public and policy makers about equity issues and the library's role.
 Promotes community dialog on ideas and issues related to equity by sponsoring bookclubs and other forums for discussion.