Flooding in Historic Biltmore Village near the entrance of the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, NC following Hurricane Helene (Wulfeck, 2024).
In order to assess the Polk County Public Libraries' response to diversity, the researcher applied the Strategic Diversity Management Framework shared in A Strategic Diversity Manifesto for Public Libraries by Bharat Mehra and Rebecca Davis. This framework allowed her to critically evaluate the library system's responses to collections, services, programs, resources, and policies in response to serving the community's diverse population of individuals residing in rural, Southern Appalachia. Similar to the framework and tables described in the Strategic Diversity Manifesto, the researcher has created the following versions, paying specific attention to the application for Polk County Public Libraries.
Conclusion
In this project, the researcher is examining the population of individuals residing in rural, Southern Appalachia. According to the Strategic Diversity Manifesto for Public Libraries by Bharat Mehra and Rebecca Davis, this is a diverse population based on geographical location. "A focus on the needs of people of local, regional, and other geographic distributions in relation to a sense of place perceived by users related to the location of the agency in the minds and hearts of the user" (Mehra & Davis, 2015). This population is relevant to this study, because it is the community in which the host agency, Polk County Public Libraries, serves and guides through times of natural disaster and crisis. Since this diversity encompasses the rural county, it was clear how the library system was already serving the community through collections, resources, and programming. The researcher identified these areas using the Strategic Diversity Management Framework described in Dr. Mehra's research. In the framework, readers are encouraged to use the Strategic Diversity Manifesto's guidelines to create a diversity checklist. The researcher employed these steps with her host agency as the example in Table 1 and described specific evidence in Table 2.
The researcher realizes that while Polk County, North Carolina is made up exclusively of this diverse population, things highlighted in the tables such as diversity representation, internal centers and organizations, and external community engagement may be implied due to the very nature of the population, they were not explicitly identified or offered specific evidence of existence. An example of this can be seen in Table 2, G.B.2 - which considers diversity representation. One may assume that diversity in terms of rural populations are on the forefront of planning and creating the library's strategic plan. In fact, the library's current strategic plan mentions goals to provide equitable services and are described for a rural community in the plan. To the best of the researcher's knowledge, she is not aware of progress or discussions that promote this goal amongst staff or management.
For the purposes of this project and its goals, it is extremely important to recognize the lack of evidence for the sections of the tables regarding internal centers and organizations as well as external community engagement. These are pinpointed aspects of the Strategic Diversity Manifesto related to communication and connections that are vital for the library system to be able to successfully serve their community during times of natural disaster and crisis.
References:
Mehra, B., & Davis, R. (2015). A strategic diversity manifesto for public libraries in the 21st Century. New Library World, 116(1/2), 15–36. https://doi.org/10.1108/nlw-04-2014-0043
Wulfeck, A. (2024, September 28). Drone video shows historic biltmore village under water after flooding in North Carolina. FOX Weather. https://www.foxweather.com/extreme-weather/north-carolina-helene-disaster