| This study focuses on the ways in which one urban public library responded to racial change in its external environment brought about by ethnic transition. Ethnic transition, as used in this investigation, means large numbers of White middle-class urban residents leaving the city and, over time, the city being occupied by large numbers of primarily poor and working class African American people. In essence, ethnic transition is a way of describing an area when it changes from White to African American people.; Although demographic and socioeconomic changes in urban areas caused by ethnic transition have been identified as influential to the provision of nontraditional services and programs in some urban public libraries, careful attention had not been given to a single library's process of adaptation in regard to this particular environmental change.; Examining the library's adaptive process meant determining how the process unfolded over time as well as identifying internal and external variables that impeded or facilitated the process. In addition, determining the ways in which library decision-makers perceived, interpreted, and responded to ethnic transition was especially important to this research.; Four internal factors and two external factors were found to be influential to the library's adaptive process. Fourteen specific and ongoing responses to ethnic transition were also identified. |
