Just Ask about Diversity: A New Librarian Uses Books to Teach Empathy

Abstract

As a beginning librarian and MLS student, the phrases “on-the-job-training” and “trial by fire” took on new meaning for me. There was so much I had to learn by doing.

Soon after starting my library science program at East Carolina University, I accepted a media coordinator position at Lillington-Shawtown (NC) Elementary School, a moderate-sized public school in a small rural county. The pre-kindergarten through fifth grade school had a population of about seven hundred students.