Recruitment and Retention of Black Female School Librarians Study

A recent study used interviews and research methodology to analyze recruitment and retention rates of Black women in the school librarian profession. The researcher identified three themes from this study: pathways to school librarianship, significance of representation, and workplace challenges for Black women who are school librarians. The research suggests potential actionable steps in recruitment and retention for Black female school librarians, and highlights the need for additional research with more participants in future studies.

Richardson, C. (2025). Perspectives of Black female school librarians on recruitment and retention. School Library Research. 

https://www.ala.org/sites/default/files/2025-09/johnson.pdf

Females and Libraries

In today’s rapidly changing world of technology and information, libraries find themselves trying to understand more about their users. The results of a qualitative survey of 184 women library patrons give insight into why and how they use library and information technology and how they learned to use that technology. Women discuss what services they particularly value, including traditional services like printed books and reference, but also their appreciation and use of the Internet, including the library’s Web site and databases. Trends showed that women are still the ones who bring children to the library and encourage their use of books. They also value the library as a place of solitude where they can find books or just be by themselves. Women use a variety of resources outside of the library to locate information as they make choices about how to find information in everyday life. It will be important for public libraries to discover ways to increase their role in educating women about library use, particularly electronic resources, and how to effectively locate and evaluate information from the Web and other resources so libraries can remain a vital part of lifelong learning.

Fidishun, D. (2007). Women and the public library: Using technology, using the library. Library Trends, 56(2), 328-343. http://dx.doi.org/10.1353/lib.2008.0010