Dear Blog Reader/Listener:

Thank you for visiting my blog and taking te time to listen and
consider my ideas.  It is my hope that you let this list of
recommendations guide you in considering ways to improve the
diversity of the profession.  Feel free to share it with any
interested colleagues.  May it help your visioning process in the
future.

*  WE CAN work with The Century Scholarship Committee and ASCLA to 
recruit potential library students who are blind or otherwise
disabled and encourage libraries, publishers, and other information
providers to hire many more of these same students as librarians
via the newly established and very much-needed policy, Library
Service for People with Disabilities.  

*  WE CAN work to establish a Century Scholarship Leadership
Institute a la Spectrum and increase The Century Scholarship Fund!

*  WE CAN work with Spectrum to recruit minorities with
disabilities into the profession!  

*  WE CAN encourage successful librarians and other information
professionals with disabilities to mentor library students with
disabilities.   Perhaps, a protocol could be formulated and a
database maintained of likely candidates and matches!

*  WE CAN advocate strongly and persistently for the development of
disabled-friendly mentoring programs in academic, public, school,
and special libraries!

*  WE CAN work with existing mentoring programs to expand and
broaden their ethnic-based definition of diversity to include those
persons  with disabilities!

*  WE CAN work to enlist major philanthropic foundations to assist
with funding for mentoring programs and adaptive technology!

*  WE CAN work to encourage editors of leading professional
publications such as Library Journal, American Libraries, Computers
in Libraries, JASIS, to prominently feature articles about
librarians with disabilities and their mentors.  Such a collection
of articles would also make an excellent book!

*  WE CAN brainstorm with the major consumer organizations of and
for the disabled to generate a database of best-practices, how-to
information and positive job tips based on the experiences of
successful librarians with disabilities.  

*  WE CAN encourage ASCLA and the Century Scholarship Committee,
PLA,  YALSA, SLA, ACRL, CLA, Beta Phi Mu, state library
associations, IMLS, LUA, ASIS, library schools, RFB&D, and  the NLS
to develop meaningful and viable internships, field experiences,
residency programs, and/or mentoring situations  for all interested
disabled library and information science students.  These programs
will generate a reciprocal exchange of knowledge and more
importantly lead to more employment for librarians with
disabilities that will generate a greater and much-needed diversity
in this rapidly changing sector of the information profession!

As Oprah said on her May 23, 2002, program that featured Barbara
Ehrenreich's book Nickel and Dimed, "Nobody makes it alone.  No one
makes it without a hand up."  

Please consider how you, too, can lend a hand so we can all pay it
forward.

(Taken from a speech presented at the ALA Convention in Atlanta,
Georgia, 2002)