Outcome 2C: Assess the information needs and interests of diverse communities and organizations.
​In August 2017, I joined the Diversity Team for Naperville Library’s Strategic Plan.  Our goal was: “We will ensure that the library’s collections and programs represent the diversity of the community.”  The team and I gathered extensive data on our library’s OPAC, collection, and programming to assess whether our services and programming were meeting the needs of our diverse community.

I conducted an audit of the book titles used in our family storytimes during the Fall of 2017 at all three of our buildings.  I collaborated with three colleagues to catalog the race and ethnicity of the authors, illustrators, and characters in the books used in storytime.  The purpose of this audit was to determine if we were sharing books with diverse characters in our programming.

The Diversity Team submitted its report to our administration with our findings in April 2018.  At our June departmental meeting, I shared the findings of our audit with the children’s department along with information on best practices for finding, evaluating, and using diverse books in storytime.