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Abstract

Haitian immigrants are a socially excluded growing demographic in the United States that deals with racism, anti-immigrant sentiment, anti-Haiti rhetoric, and language barriers. Information professionals need to understand Haitian information behavior, their cultural preferences, and barriers in order to successfully fulfill their information needs. This article examines other disciplines’ relevant and scholarly research literature on Haitian immigrants in the United States to discover their trends of information behavior and barriers so that the Library and Information Science field can create effective information pathways to support their community. Haitian immigrants turn to their families and trusted individuals for their information needs, due to their high-context oral culture. They utilize the radio and ICT networks to connect transnationally. The challenges to their information needs include information overload, language barriers, a bias for face-to-face communication, racism, and culture clash issues. Information professionals can mitigate these barriers by providing outreach, access, excellent programming, bilingual resources and reference, and culturally competent staff.

Keywords: Haitian immigrants, libraries, Haiti, information needs, information behaviors, social inclusion, United States

About Author

Natasha Finnegan is the Assistant Head of Circulation and Interlibrary Loan Specialist at Salisbury University Libraries. She achieved her MLIS at San Jose State University in May 2022.

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