‘Cultural Competence is for Everyone’: Cultural Competence in the United States Library and Information Sector. Is It Relevant to Australian Libraries?

Abstract

Cultural competence is a capacity that enables professionals and organisations to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. It has been adopted in fields such as health, social work, psychology, education and information. Library and information science in the USA has responded to growing diversity in the population by incorporating cultural competence into policy, education and practice. This article traces how this has occurred, likening the process to a learning cycle or virtuous circle. Similarities in the Australian context suggest that Australian libraries could usefully develop cultural competence by drawing on experience in the USA, to underpin the formation of a virtuous learning circle in this country.

The ‘Difficult Balance Between Equity and Differentiation’: Developing a Transformative Praxis

“…The first area relates to the concept of cultural and linguistic expertise as a deficit or skills gap among library personnel. Solutions to this deficit have focused on LIS education and training, policy development, community outreach, recruiting methods, marketing, ethnic informational profiling and the notion of 'cultural competence' (Black, 2018;Blackburn, 2015aBlackburn, , 2015bBlackburn, , 2020Clifton, 2019;Du, Tan, & Xu, 2019;Foster, 2018;Hernandez & Field, 2003;Hill, 2018;Khoir, Du, Davison, & Koronios, 2017;Kumasi & Hill, 2013;Mestre, 2010). The second area of long-standing and ongoing concern is the impasse between the professional standards and practices that form the epistemic and epistemological foundations of LIS knowledge and education and the growing body of critical LIS knowledge and expanding movements of 'epistemic disobedience' (Mignolo, 2009, pp.…”

Defining and Inscribing ‘Multicultural Library Services’ in Australia: A Case Study of the Working Group on Multicultural Library Services (Victoria)

“…In Australian libraries, a recent trend at an institutional level is to adopt 'diversity' and 'inclusion' policies and plans in an apparent attempt to better recognise and reflect Australia's social pluralism in collections, programs, and workforces. Such initiatives, including 'cultural competence' training in LIS education and the workplace, have formed the focus of two recent journal articles in Australian LIS scholarship (Blackburn, 2015;Maestro et al, 2018). Critical race scholars, as well as critical librarians, have suggested that institutional commitments to 'diversity' perform a largely symbolic function that do little to disrupt institutional racism and white dominance.…”

Community engagement, cultural competence and two Australian public libraries and Indigenous communities

“…Enrolling in a Master of Information Management course, I researched library and information science and cultural competence (Blackburn, 2015). I came to consider cultural competence fundamental to cross-cultural provision and community engagement: both entail working from a library’s particular way of operating (its culture), with groups having other cultures.…”