Janelle Goodrich

LIS525 Portfolio

Standard 2: Literacy and Reading

During the course LIS585 Management of School Libraries, diversity was a major

discussion during the course. One of the assignments was completing a diversity audit. For this

assignment, I decided to complete a diversity audit within the young adult section of the library

because this section is the most popular with the middle school students. The school library

where the audit took place was a small rural school district where there is not much ethnic

diversity. However, our students were diverse in other ways. Many of our students suffered

from learning disorders and/or mental illness and a many interested in LGBTQIA+ reading

material. I knew that the young adult section did not match these diverse groups.

Finding books that fit these diversity categories was a challenging task. At first, I was

looking for young adult books that had a grade level reading level for middle school where the

main topic dealt with learning disorders and/or mental illnesses. This was a challenging task.

After hours of searching, I did manage to find a few books that fit within my criteria. However, I

was really trying to match my diversity sections with the schools population so a few books was

not going to be suffice.

I ended up changing my path of search. Instead of finding books that was centered

around a learning disorder and/or mental illness. I tried to find books where the characters

dealt with a learning disorder and/or mental illness. I specifically tried to find books where the
character dealt with a learning disorder/mental illness and the disorder or illness caused some

type of problem because I felt like many of the students could relate.

I was also surprised by my search for books that focused on the topic of LGBTQIA+

because even though this is a more talked about topic, there still was not many books where

the focus was LGBTQIA+. During my search I did find children’s books that fit this criteria, but I

did not find many young adult books that fit within the genre of young adult.

After completing the diversity audit, I realized that this section was heavily lacking in not

only these diverse topics, but also other diverse topics. The majority of the library also had

books where the main character was Caucasian. We did have books were the main character

or supporting characters were of other nationalities or races, but those books were a small

percentage. This assignment left me to question that if just the young adult section of the

library that was not even half of the books in the library that the other sections must also be

missing diverse books as well.

It is especially important to provide students with a broad variety of diversity. The

population of the users of the library do not get to experience a broad range of diversity within

the community. By providing reading material with a broad range of diversity allows for the

user to grow personally. When patrons or students are given diverse reading material they can

learn about a world outside of the small community. The students get a sense of other

cultures, opinions, point of views, and life of people of other races. People learn through

reading. So when they are provided with diverse learning material, they are learning about a

world outside of what the person is used to. I believe that by being exposed to diversity makes

for a more well rounded person.