Detrice Bankhead, associate university librarian, supervises the Library Fellowship Program for UCSB libraries.

A pioneering program to increase diversity among the ranks of university librarians recently celebrated its 20th year at UCSB. Its innovations have served as a model for many other universities.

The Library Fellowship Program was launched in 1985 by then-University Librarian Joseph Boisse as a post-graduate training program for recent holders of the Master’s in Library Science. Now retired, Boisse told the 20th anniversary conference of librarians that the program’s original goals were to increase the presence of underrepresented groups among academic librarians; provide role models for UCSB undergraduates; and to involve UCSB librarians in the training of new librarians.

The present University Librarian, Sarah Pritchard, continued all of that. Though only 15 underrepresented librarians have so far become Fellows in the UCSB program, its influence as a model approach has spread widely, according to Detrice Bankhead, associate university librarian and head of the campus library system’s Human Resources Office.

“Much publicity has been written about this program and it has served, and continues to be, a model for universities across the nation,” she said. “Programs at Auburn, University of Iowa, University of Tennessee, Yale, Cornell, University of Notre Dame, University of Minnesota, and more have instituted two-year post-MLS internship/residencies designed to increased diversity among their professional staff.”

Alumni from the two-year-long UCSB fellowship/residency program are found in positions of responsibility in academic libraries around the United States. Among those who returned to campus to join in the 20th birthday celebration were librarians from Stanford, Emory, Northeastern, and San Diego State universities.

Of the current total of 40 librarians in UCSB libraries, 25 percent are from underrepresented groups, said Bankhead. Two of those librarians—Gary Colemar and Yolanda Blue—are former UCSB Fellows; a third former Fellow left in September to become a reference librarian at the Institute for the Study of the American West at the Autry National Center in Pasadena, Calif.

Another former Fellow, Patrick Dawson from the original group selected in 1985, has stayed at UCSB as head of information services for the library system.

Efforts to diversify the library system’s career employee staff have continued outside the fellowship program, noted Bankhead. Approximately 25 percent of the system’s 185 career employees are from underrepresented populations.