Minorities and the Symbolic Potential of the Academic Library: Reinventing Tradition

Mainstream American colleges and universities face a series of challenges over the recruitment and retention of their minority students. In a theoretical essay with practical examples, a Hispanic library dean and the executive director of one of the nation's largest African American archives argue that the academic library has a special and all too often overlooked role to play in resolving a portion of these difficulties. While acknowledging prior good intentions, they ask the reader to add critical and semiological perspectives of their institutions to this equation. The university and its library are signs of advancement, yet they can also project an alien, elitist, and previously forbidden goal to minorities. The academic library's potential may actually rest on an understanding of its own symbolic power and the librarian's proactive willingness to reinvent tradition to include minorities and their heritages as an integral part of the academic environment.