Review: <em>Unfinished Business: Race, Equity, and Diversity in Library and Information Science Education</em> edited by Maurice B. Wheeler

Abstract

Unfinished Business: Race, Equity, and Diversity in Library and Information Science Education edited by Maurice B. Wheeler. Lanham: Scarecrow Press, 2005. 203 pp. ISBN 0-8108- Discovery. Colonization. Slavery. Civil war. Reconstruction. Civil rights. And finally, Brown v. Board of Education in 1954. Was this a new beginning or a false start? Race has played a salient role in the history of the United States; racism, discrimination, and the degradation of African Americans and other minorities existed in this country for more than 200 years before the peak of the Civil Rights Movement.¹ Indeed, 50 years before Brown v. Board of Education, W.E.B. Dubois proclaimed that “the problem of the twentieth-century is the problem of the color line” (1996, p. 11). Clearly, race continues to play an important role in America: almost 40 years after the historic Supreme Court decision, John Hope Franklin (1993), a prominent historian, echoed Dubois’ proclamation by stating that the problem of the twenty-first century will continue to be the color line. Like Dubois and Hope, the contributing authors of Unfinished Business: Race, Equity, and Diversity in Library and Information Science Education draw a similar conclusion—that racial inequity remains in both intellectual and professional pursuits in the field of Library and Information Science (LIS). That is not to suggest that progress has not been made; it has, but the authors pose the question, “to what extent?” Contributors, which include graduate students, practicing librarians, and experienced LIS faculty, collectively argue that despite the Brown v. Board of Education decision that occurred 50 years ago, the LIS field has never been fully integrated. Unlike most publications that argue for diversity merely because it is the right thing to do, Unfinished Business argues that diversity is necessary in order to challenge the historical patterns of institutional racism upon which many segments of American society are built. Unfinished Business successfully shows that despite efforts to integrate LIS, much more work needs to be done. In the first chapter, Elizabeth Figa, a specialist in LIS history and culture, and Janet Macpherson, a doctoral student, provide a brief yet rich historical snapshot of American libraries and library schools before and after the Brown decision. As Figa and Macpherson show, segregation was standard practice among libraries before the Brown decision: in 1948, only four states offered integrated library services for blacks and whites. After Brown, the move towards integrating libraries was slow, and the American Library Association (ALA) made few efforts to facilitate integration. In 1961, for example, the ALA approved an amendment prohibiting refusal of library services based on race, but the amendment went largely ignored. LIS education has faced similar challenges in the realm of inclusion and integration. In 1966, 4 percent of