Feature Articles

Addressing Special Needs and At-Risk Populations in Library Education Programs

In his recent article about serving special needs teens in the public library, Elsworth Rockefeller makes a very telling statement: “Serving youth with special needs was not addressed in my library school courses or practicum work.”1 When I first read Rockefeller’s words in early 2008, I found myself filled with a feeling that seemed to be a strange but potent blend of familiarity and exhilaration. The familiarity sprung from the fact that I was reading words that I had heard repeatedly from others throughout my library career (and with which I agreed without hesitation): Library schools teach us little, if anything, about working with populations that may be deemed “special” (or “nontraditional” or “disadvantaged”). Rockefeller’s lament is one that seems to be shared almost universally by members of the library profession. And, as such, it points to an issue that is both very real and in need of urgent attention.

At the very same time, the feeling of exhilaration that I felt was due to the fact that, at long last, it was possible to see in print a belief and plea that had been, in essence, almost exclusively verbal heretofore. It seemed as though a kind of starting point had been established; a quiet, but powerful call to arms. Accordingly, my goal in this article is to carry this idea just a step or two further; to take up the call for an increase in library school curricula devoted to special needs and at-risk populations (with a particular emphasis on teens) and amplify the volume as much as possible.

To be sure, throughout my twenty-year career as a library professional, I have participated in countless discussions with colleagues regarding the deficiencies of library school education. Quite frequently, these generally impassioned discussions result from an unpleasant or frustrating on-the-job experience. A librarian, perhaps close to or actually in tears, will decry the lack of adequate preparation she or he received while pursuing an MLS or MLIS: “Why didn’t they talk about this in library school?!” And, while this lament is often entirely justified, there are many cases, in all honesty, in which it is not. Sometimes, after all, lessons linger in one’s consciousness and sometimes they quickly drift away.

However, it has become strikingly clear to me that certain complaints truly stand out and demand very serious attention, not only because of the fact that they are repeated so regularly by graduates from such a diverse range of schools, but also because, quite frankly, I concur wholeheartedly. Take the burning, grossly under-taught issues of the problem patron and the problem supervisor, for example. So numerous are the complaints I have heard about the lack of discussion in MLS and MLIS programs of these two distressing and all-too-common realities and so frequently have I found myself feeling the very same anguish and outrage when forced to deal with a menacing library user or irrational authority figure, that it is nearly impossible to avoid thinking that some grounding, some fundamental training in a professional degree program may be able to arm a librarian with at least a few handy tools or coping mechanisms that can be reached for and put to use whenever such circumstances rear their disturbing heads.

Without question, on-the-job training is not at all something to be taken lightly and certainly never fails to enhance and expand the skills of anyone in any field, including librarianship. However, inevitable realities of the uncomfortable, confusing, and, in such cases as the ones just described, unpleasant kind can and should be prime topics in any professional program. In truth, these are practical matters, just as worthy of serious attention as the development of effective reference skills and an ability to build and manage library collections.

Thus, we come back to the very practical, but generally neglected matter of understanding and learning how to work best with special needs and at-risk populations—teens, in particular.

As fate will have it, at almost the precise time that Rockefeller’s article was published in Public Libraries, I was busy making arrangements with the University of British Columbia’s School of Library, Archival, and Information Studies (SLAIS) to teach a summer course called “Library Services to Special Needs and At-Risk Young Adults.” The planets, in a sense, were aligned. In the latter part of this article, I will discuss this course further; however, at this stage, it is useful to share one piece of information—my list of three essential goals for the course. This list, I think, signifies what may be the basic elements that any MLS or MLIS program can offer its students in order to provide a foundation for excellence (or, at least, competency) in serving special needs and at-risk individuals:

1. To provide students with a deeper understanding of at-risk young adults and young adults with special needs.
2. To provide students with an understanding of the importance of including and involving special needs and at-risk young adults in all library planning, programming, and services.
3. To provide students with an introduction to collections, programs, and partnerships with other youth-serving community agencies for special needs and at-risk young adults.

Clearly, these are goals that are relatively modest; yet, even in their modesty, they go a long way toward raising the awareness, skill levels, and sensitivity of future librarians. As has been stated by countless contributors to library literature when describing best practices for working with special needs and at-risk populations, attitude is perhaps the most important ingredient for success. In keeping with this widely accepted belief, these three goals strive to affect the attitude of every student, encouraging an understanding that services for special needs and at-risk populations are not an add-on for libraries, but, rather, lie at the very heart of all library work. As Michael Gorman has expressed so forcefully, the “historic mission” of the library is “to help everybody, but especially the poor, socially disadvantaged, and powerless.”2 Yet libraries and librarians, all too often, are at a loss or actually resistant when it comes to working with nontraditional, less mainstream members of society.

The very term, special needs, it can be said, implies for many an outsider status. Among librarians, the feeling can arise—especially in times of tight, dwindling budgets—that there are necessary services and those that are extraneous or non-core (or, as Julie Hersberger remarks in reference to attitudes sometimes expressed in libraries toward homeless individuals, a sense of “worthy” and “unworthy” patrons).3 The above-mentioned choice of placing the emphasis on services for mainstream users at the expense of non-users and those who are not viewed as “core” (those who are “less deserving”), means that many either will feel unwelcome in the library or else will continue to live their lives without any awareness or consideration of libraries whatsoever. In spite of the fact that the library may have an abundance of material and resources that may serve to provide needed assistance, new directions, and fresh ideas—and although the mission of every library in North America is to serve equally each member of its respective community—a high percentage of individuals may feel or actually be excluded from the shared treasures of the library.

In terms of populations that can suffer conscious or unconscious exclusion, it is possible to cite the following:

• those who are not seen as making “proper” use of library resources (for example, the homeless, those who are at-risk, and so on);
• those who may be thought of as harder to comprehend, requiring training, resources, equipment, and staff time that the library does not, cannot, or will not supply (for example, individuals with disabilities);
• those who represent populations that some librarians view as too controversial or to which some librarians have a personal objection (for example, LGBTQ individuals, pregnant teens and teen parents, substance abusers, and so on); and
• those who are in programs or institutions that may be deemed alternative and may require outreach that a library is unwilling or unprepared to undertake (for example, individuals in detention, special schools, foster care, and so on).

Of course, it would be completely foolish to suggest that the reason that lurks ominously behind every instance of confusion and exclusion is lack of sufficient coursework in library school. Indeed, as anyone who has ever suffered poor management from a supervisor with stellar management training will affirm, problems will arise regardless of education credentials. Nevertheless, it can certainly be said that the lack of adequate readiness in terms of special needs services is by no means a positive reality and it is obvious that a more solid foundation would, at the very least, raise awareness and increase confidence within the future librarian.

Library education programs strive nobly to supply students with the tools and skills that they will need for the provision of top quality, easily portable, core library services. In no way is this a simple task, especially now, when new technology is so rapidly changing and so many new applications need to be learned by a library school student. Yet, in the pursuit of the core, we once again discover that those services (and, by extension, those populations) that may be viewed as non-core will fall once more by the wayside or else will be given only short shrift as students work diligently toward the prized degree. Truly, this is a sad and harmful sacrifice to make.

One extraordinarily valuable lesson—among so many—that I learned this summer from the extraordinary, inspirational students who opted to take my course was just how hungry so many library school students are for opportunities to discuss and gain more knowledge of critical philosophical issues in librarianship—issues that seem to be seen repeatedly as not worthy of being required or even offered in a complete, three-credit format. Yet, how much more fully rounded, how much more passionate and committed and versatile would entry-level librarians be with a more ethics-based background and a clearer understanding of the essential importance of libraries in every conceivable community—from towns and cities to primary and secondary schools, from colleges and universities to governments, corporations, and organizations?

In their excellent contribution to Neal-Schuman’s How-to-Do-It Manual series, Preparing Staff to Serve Patrons with Disabilities, Courtney Deines-Jones and Connie Jean Van Fleet make a very blunt and thought-provoking statement about problems that can arise from a staff that is inadequately trained in working with disabled individuals: Reactions of well-meaning staff members who are unprepared to serve patrons with disabilities can fall to two extremes. On the one hand, some will hesitate to offer help to library users who have disabilities out of fear of being thought of as patronizing or overbearing. On the other hand, they may be solicitous to the point of being stifling.4

Without question, this thought can be extended easily to all special needs and at-risk populations. Deines-Jones and Van Fleet, in essence, are appealing to both libraries and library schools to be sure that training staff members and students, respectively, in the best, most effective approaches to serving special needs and at-risk individuals should be a top priority. In the case of libraries, Deines-Jones and Van Fleet would urge a commitment to ongoing workshops and staff development programs, while librarians themselves are advised to be fully aware of the need for unceasing advocacy, knowledge sharing, and community participation in all areas. At the same time, library schools must modify their curricula to include some element of mandatory coursework or fieldwork relating to special needs and at-risk members of society.

In the early part of this decade, Ann Curry, a former professor and colleague of mine at SLAIS, undertook a fascinating and eye-opening study of the manner in which LGBTQ teens are treated in various Canadian public libraries. Curry’s work revealed that for such teens the library experience was a kind of mixed bag—sometimes very positive, sometimes moderately so, and, alarmingly, often rather negative. As Curry evaluated her findings, she made the observation that “a good reference librarian can mean the difference between the youth fleeing the library or considering the library a helpful refuge.”5 Clearly, this sense of the library as the helpful refuge—or, as Robert McNulty puts it, “the great good place”6—is something that all members of the library profession seek desperately to realize. Ensuring that MLS and MLIS programs provide students with the grounding they need to serve members of the community who are outside what is considered generally to be the mainstream is one extremely important step that can be taken toward the fulfillment of this shining goal.

References

1. Elsworth Rockefeller, “Striving to Serve Diverse Youth: Mainstreaming Teens with Special Needs through Public Library Programming,” Public Libraries 47, no. 1 (Jan./Feb. 2008): 51.

2. Michael Gorman, Our Enduring Values: Librarianship in the 21st Century (Chicago: ALA, 2000): 81.

3. Julie Hersberger, “The Homeless and Information Needs,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 44, no. 3 (Spring 2005): 199.

4. Courtney Deines-Jones and Connie Jean Van Fleet, Preparing Staff to Serve Patrons with Disabilities: A How-to-Do-It Manual for Librarians (New York: Neal-Schuman, 1995): 1.

5. Ann Curry, “If I Ask, Will They Answer? Evaluating Public Library Reference Service to Gay and Lesbian Youth,” Reference & User Services Quarterly 45, no. 1 (Fall 2005): 165.

6. Robert McNulty, quoted