Thanks to a $32,400 grant from the Altman Foundation, Queens Borough (N.Y.) Public Library will launch a program to encourage young adults to consider librarianship as a career.
The brainchild of Director Gary Strong, the program will recruit "page fellows" from high schools and colleges who will work as part-time pages at the library. Each fellow will partner with a mentor who is a professional librarian; and together they will explore the various facets of librarianship, attend training sessions, and take field trips to other systems.
Strong believes librarians aren't representative of the populations they serve, and says that "without a diverse professional library workforce, the public will not reap the full benefits from the wealth of material available to them."
Posted January 5, 1998.