Synopses & Reviews
A companion volume to Immigrants and the American Experience (1999), this book covers American public library services to immigrants from 1876 to 2003. As such it provides an excellent text on public library services to diverse groups and multiculturalism in public libraries. It presents a detailed exposition of immigration law, accompanied by an analysis of laws affecting libraries. These legislative activities are placed in the context of library practice and the library profession, treating fully developments within ALA and the government agencies tasked with the funding and oversight of libraries.
Review
This well-researched treatise on the history of American public library services for immigrants and minorities from 1876 to 2003 places library practice and the library profession within the context of events that shaped legal and judicial decisions affecting minority populations and their impact on library service in an increasingly multicultural society....[J]ones reviews the role of the American Library Association as an advocate for the rights of all residents to have free and open access to library and information services. He traces ALA policies regarding intellectual freedom; the establishment of federal funding opportunities for public libraries; minority librarians, and library school students; and opposition to the USA PATRIOT Act. Recommended for all library school libraries, library consortia, or academic libraries that support a library curriculum.Booklist/Professional Reading
Review
This publication will serve as a very useful handbook on the chronology of library services with minorities.Multicultural Review
Review
[U]seful as a reference work....This book would be a useful addition to collections concerning public library services to disadvantaged patrons.Libraries &Culture
Synopsis
Provides an excellent text on public library services to diverse groups and multiculturalism in public libraries, including a detailed exposition of immigration law.
About the Author
PLUMMER ALSTON "AL" JONES JR. is Associate Professor of Library Science, East Carolina University, Greenville, North Carolina. He received the first biennial Phyllis Dain Library History Dissertation Award in 1993 from the ALA Library History Round Table for his dissertation, "American Public Library Services to the Immigrant Community, 1876-1948." His book, Libraries, Immigrants, and the American Experience, was published in 1999 by Greenwood Press. For his service as North Carolina Library Association President (1999-2001) and on the State Library Commission (1997-2001), he was made a member of the Order of the Long Leaf Pine by North Carolina Governor Michael F. Easley in 2002. He was presented the 2004 David Cohen/EMIERT Multicultural Award by the ALA Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table for his research and publications on multiculturalism in libraries.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword
Public Libraries and Americanization, 1876 through 1940s
Public Libraries and the Beginning of Federal Funding in the 1950s
Public Libraries and Civil Rights in the 1960s
Public Libraries and Racial and Ethnic Awareness in the 1970s
Public Libraries and Multiculturalism in the 1980s
Public Libraries and Globalism in the 1990s
Afterword
Bibliography
Index