Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University Edwardsville, in collaboration with East St. Louis Senior High School, will develop a career training program that introduces 10 high school seniors from East St. Louis Senior High School to careers in librarianship. Over the course of this two-year program, a team of five academic librarians, along with staff at partner institutions at the East St. Louis Learning Resource Center, Edwardsville Public Library, St. Louis Public Library, Missouri Historical Society, and the State Historical Society of Missouri, will recruit, mentor, educate, and train students from diverse and underrepresented communities. This project seeks to address and reduce the most pervasive issues related to recruiting and retaining diverse library employees by providing a pathway to the profession prior to entering a library and information science graduate program and by developing a more equitable approach to recruitment and retention. This project will disseminate a toolkit for libraries and cultural institutions to support the recruitment, training, and retention of diverse librarians.