MOSAIC began in 1991 as a strategy for LPS to meet LB 922, which requires all public schools to infuse multicultural education into the K-12 curriculum. The original MOSAIC multicultural book display was small, drawing from previously published titles and the few newly published titles available at that time. Thirty years later, MOSAIC continues to impact our district by informing teachers, librarians, and curriculum designers about high quality multicultural resources. A dedicated committee of librarians, educators, and community members systematically seek out the newest and best titles by and about diverse cultures and people. The committee reads and rigorously reviews each title according to the quality of content and the perspective of cultural authenticity. Many hours of research and consideration are involved in the review process to ensure that titles do not perpetuate stereotypes or misinformation. The priority is to identify titles that are accurate, authentic, and of high literary quality. Only those titles that receive excellent reviews are promoted to the MOSAIC collection. These titles are then actively promoted to teachers, librarians, administrators, curriculum specialists, students, and families so that they can be purchased by individual school libraries, integrated into curriculum, and most importantly, put into the hands of the students who need them, whether as a reflection and affirmation of their own lives or as a means to better understand the lives and experiences of others.
What began as a small event hosted in the hallways of the district office has evolved and transformed over the decades. MOSAIC now exists as a virtual display (https://lms.lps.libguides.com/MOSAIC2018) that can be accessed by students, teachers, families, and community members at any time throughout the year. Through this model, we continue to provide the most popular and most important features of the collection: critical reviews, curriculum connections, links to book trailers and extended video resources. In addition, this new format has allowed us to link directly to ebook and audiobook records, providing users instant access to many of the titles in the collection.
