November 21, 2007

A Sincere Thank You!

The Directors of the DLN (Kawanna Bright, Jayati Chaudhuri, and Maud Mundava) would like to express our sincerest thanks to everyone who helped support the DLN over the past 3 years. When we started the project in 2004 we were all still residents at the University of Tennessee Libraries and able to work with much focus on making the DLN a useful resource for everyone interested in diversity issues in librarianship. However, change was inevitable for all of us as the Residency program launched our own careers and opened the door for new opportunities. We have all sadly moved on from the UT Libraries and our new responsibilities will not allow us to put the effort into the DLN that it both needs and deserves.

We regret that we will be discontinuing this service but do want to reassure everyone that there are other efforts underway that continue the goals of the DLN. We will ourselves be involved in these efforts and invite others to become involved as well. For additional information please visit the ARL Residency Programs Database where you can also find information about an electronic community for those who manage residency programs and current and past participants in programs: http://residencies.arl.org/.

For users of Facebook there are two groups currently active on the social networking site that may also be of interest:

• Academic Library Fellows and Residents: A group for past and present participants of academic library residency and fellowship programs, but also welcoming to those with an interest in these program.

• Diversity in Academic Libraries: A group in interested in the advocacy for equality and diversity both within racial/ethnic communities but also within the library profession.

Please join and lend your support to these efforts.

Though the DLN is no longer a working entity, we would still be happy to offer information or answer questions to those who may have an interest in diversity issues in librarianship. Please feel free to contact us at diversitylibrariansnetwork@gmail.com and be sure to drop by our blog: http://diversitylibrariansnetwork.blogspot.com/.

Once again, thank you for your support of our efforts. We truly would not have had the success that we did without you!

Sincerely,

The DLN Directors (Kawanna Bright, Jayati Chaudhuri, and Maud Mundava)