Social Bookmarking 3: Irish Culture and Customs

Irishcultureandcustoms.com

The Irish culture and customs website is a great example of an entire culture being accessible to everyone through the internet. This site explores all aspects of the Irish culture and their customs from literature to everyday life in modern Ireland to the myths and superstitions of Ireland in honor or Halloween. This look into the culture of the Irish people brings understanding and humor to the differences and similarities of culture and life from one town to the next. This site explores all aspects of Ireland and even has a section that helps visitors to understand some Irish phrases and words that would be helpful for anyone who may decide to visit Ireland on their own so as to avoid trouble or to help get out of a tough situation.

Social Bookmarking 3: One Society Many Cultures

http://www.onesocietymanycultures.org/

One Society Many cultures is a great website not only for it's message of acceptance of all cultures but also for it's ability to get information about all these different cultures out to the public. With news about the breaking stories dealing with different cultures this site allows everyone to keep current with what is happening in today's world along with giving the reader a background in the different terms used in today's world dealing with culture. With it's base in London they also have demonstrations and gatherings so that others can come out and meet to talk and support each other about the most current topics that are present.

Article 2: Diversity and intercultural issues in library and information science (LIS) education

Abdullahi, I. (2007). Diversity and intercultural issues in library and information science (LIS)

education. New Library World, 108(9/10), 453-459.

This article focuses on four characteristics that the best LIS teachers and library professionals have utilized to successfully reach out to the diverse population. First, LIS professionals need to be conscious of the sociocultural issues that exist in the world today so that they can see the impact that location and culture have upon individuals. This is important to LIS professionals because through understanding your own sociocultural identity you can understand the connection between the purpose of the library and the needed interaction from a library professional. Through this understanding, LIS professionals can help break down social barriers that have been created or perpetuated through discrimination by helping students and patrons to see diversity as a chance to improve . This is the second characteristic that allows LIS professionals to better help diverse populations - seeing students of all backgrounds as intelligent contributors to the classroom. The third characteristic is seeing oneself as a person responsible for bringing about change that would lead to schools being more accepting and receptive to all students. LIS professionals must “be the change” so that they can influence and affect all those who they come in contact with and to be aware and accepting of the cultural diversity in the library. Lastly, LIS professionals and teachers must assist in building upon current knowledge of students and using this to help expand knowledge beyond previous boundaries. These teachers must use the previous tenets to help students in creating new ideas in order to understand the world rather than depending on previous memorized knowledge.

These four qualities serve as the organizing framework for infusing attention to diversity throughout the library education curriculum. They represent the conceptual strands to be woven throughout the learning experiences of prospective librarians in coursework and fieldwork so that, collectively, those experiences cultivate the qualities of culturally responsive information professionals.

This quote by Abdullahi’s Diversity and intercultural issues in library and information science (LIS) education is extremely important because these characteristics are exactly what are needed to help create culturally conscious librarians. These four characteristics describe how a library professional must conduct themselves around students or library patrons to really make a great librarian. Each of the four characteristics are a skill that needs to be learned, but that involves using it in conjunction with all other skills to make it the most effective. Social consciousness, helping students see themselves as a contribution rather than a hindrance, being an agent on change, and building upon current cultural knowledge to create and accept new cultural ideas all are needed to reach the peak library professionalism and improve the lives of all of those they interact with.

It is incredibly important for the LIS community to both attend these classes and to eventually be able to teach these classes, because it gives a depth of understanding to the library professional and the community. These characteristics allow for a better understanding between cultures and, if properly utilized by the library professionals, it can become a starting point for incorporating ideas and acceptance of different cultural ideas to help create better programs and activities that are available to the patrons. These characteristics are incredibly important to the development of a degree in library and information sciences because without these skills you can only be as effective as the stereotypes that you may or may not be perpetuating because of a personal lack of knowledge. Without classes to teach library professionals these skills, and much more, the library would not be able to be the agent of change that it so drastically needs to be in relation to acceptance of different cultures.

The idea of multicultural classes and introducing students to sociocultural consciousness of both the individual and society should be mandatory to attend, because of the inherent knowledge you learn not only about yourself, but also about different cultures and the hardships and triumphs that they have been involved in. With knowledge of multiple cultures, it becomes easier to connect to different people, which makes assisting them easier and a much more comfortable situation. Without this knowledge of different cultures, it is harder to predict the needs of different patrons, leading to miscommunication, confusion, frustration and the inability to properly assist the person.

The lack of any one of these characteristics would leave a wide gap that would make the overall aim much less effective. If any of these skills were compromised, it would effect the individual's ability to properly utilize the other skills because they are so deeply intertwined. For example, without sociocultural consciousness, you would not be able to add to a student's knowledge base hindering them from creating new ideas and continuing learning on their own. It is imperative that all four skills are taught for this very reason.