Kristen Greenland
Chemical & Physical Sciences Librarian
kgreenland@berkeley.edu
Erica Newcome
Technical Processing & Collection Projects Assistant
erican@berkeley.edu
Susan Powell
GIS & Map Librarian
smpowell@berkeley.edu
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
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Format:
Session 2: Collections
[This session was held on Zoom so we used a shared Google Doc with the following content and collaboratively took notes]
Agenda
Welcome & Group Norms (~10 minutes)
Definitions: Anti-Racism & Decolonizing Collections (~15 minutes)
Anti-Racism & Collections (~40 minutes)
Anti-Racism & Collection Strategies (~20 minutes)
Wrap Up (<5 minutes)
We will be working through this shared document together. The facilitators will do their best to capture notes as we go, but feel free to add anything that gets missed.
Welcome & Group Norms (~10 minutes)
Background: Group norms are the informal guidelines of behavior and a code of conduct that provides some order and conformity to group activities and operations. We expect that all participants in this series will help create an environment that is respectful and productive. In the last session, we brainstormed some group norms for this series and we asked you to tell us which are the most important to you in the pre-work.
Results: [Include yours here]
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Discussion Questions:
Why are these specific norms important?
What measurable behaviors can we incorporate to reinforce these norms?
How do we hold each other accountable for these norms?
Discussion notes:
Definitions: Anti-Racism, Diversity, & Decolonizing Collections (~15 minutes)
Background: In libraries we often use different phrases like diversifying collections, applying anti-racist strategies, and decolonizing the collections. Below are some quotes that describe these different approaches.
"A diverse collection should contain content by and about a wide array of people and cultures to authentically reflect a variety of ideas, information, stories, and experiences." - ALA (adopted 1982, last amended 2019) Diverse Collections: An Interpretation of the Library Bill of Rights
"All librarians and information workers contributing to collection development must acknowledge that the societal issues of racism impact decision-making processes of collection development. The centering of whiteness in mainstream society combined with the personal biases, unconscious or otherwise, of information workers can cause information workers to exclude and misrepresent materials by and about Black and non-Black creators of color in libraries. Organizations that develop collection development diversity policies and statements, while well intentioned, cannot depend on these statements to improve their collections. There must be an intentional commitment to racial justice and anti-racist collection development practices and policies as well." - Conner-Gaten, Caragher, & Drake (2017) Collections Decoded: Reflections and Strategies for Anti-racist Collection Development
"At a conference on educational research, it is not uncommon to hear speakers refer, almost casually, to the need to 'decolonize our schools,' or use 'decolonizing methods,' or 'decolonize student thinking.' Yet, we have observed a startling number of these discussions make no mention of Indigenous peoples, our/their struggles for the recognition of our/their sovereignty, or the contributions of Indigenous intellectuals and activists to theories and frameworks of decolonization. Further, there is often little recognition given to the immediate context of settler colonialism of the North American lands where many of these conferences take place."
"Decolonize (a verb) and decolonization (a noun) cannot easily be grafted onto pre-existing discourses/frameworks, even if they are critical, even if they are anti-racist, even if they are just frameworks... Decolonization doesn't have a synonym."
- Tuck & Yang (2012) Decolonization is Not a Metaphor
Activity:
Take five minutes to read the quotes above and write down your reflections on the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions:
What are some of the differences between diverse, anti-racist, and decolonized collections?
What struck you about these definitions? Why do they sometimes get used interchangeably?
Discussion notes:
Anti-Racism & Collections (~40 minutes)
Power in Publishing (~15 minutes)
Background: We asked you to read and watch a few items to frame a discussion about the structures of power that affect our collections. Michelle Baidon, who was part of the MIT Libraries Collection Directorate Social Justice Task Force in 2016, discusses the inequities that lead to the missing voices in our collections:
"If we acknowledge [...] that white supremacy and heteronormative patriarchy are pervasive and affect all stages of scholarly and scientific production, where does that train of though take us? Not only librarianship, but also the publishing industry, our vendors, and higher education itself exist in these structures of power [...]. Because of these inequities, people are squeezed out at every possible point of participation in educational and scholarly communication systems. [...] A genuine commitment to diversity, inclusion, and social justice prompts us to see these missing voices." - from Extending the Social Justice Mindset: Implications for Scholarly Communication (2018) p. 176
The Task Force identified strategy areas for MIT Library "staff to manifest the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice in their daily work." As part of the framing for the resulting report, they discuss the notion of neutrality as relates to libraries and quote a talk by Chris Bourg:
"Our traditional practices and technologies are not neutral, and without active intervention we end up with collections that lack diversity and we end up classifying and arranging our content in ways that further marginalizes works by and about people of color, queer people, indigenous peoples, and others who don't fit neatly into a classification system that sets the default as western, white, straight, and male." (2017) p. 7
Charlotte Roh gave a talk in 2017 entitled "Scholarly Communication and Social Justice: Pushing to Subvert Traditional Publishing Power Structures" about access to information and who has power in publishing, and we asked you to review her slides. Slide 17:
We'd now like to take some time to discuss these readings and focus on the discussion questions below.
Discussion Questions:
Whose voices are represented in our collections and in scientific literature? Why does this matter?
Whose voices are missing from our collections?
Libraries are often described as neutral repositories of information. How is this description harmful/regressive?
Where do libraries fit into the structures of power in publishing?
Where can we exert force?
Discussion notes:
Working With Collections (~10 minutes)
Background: In the 2019 Bringing Social Justice Behind the Scenes: Transforming the Work of Technical Services Video, Berthoud & Finn discuss finding the moments within our work to disrupt the system in jobs where we are judged on practical efficiencies. Berthoud says during the talk:
"In our jobs it is really easy to [...] get lost in the practical, but [...] where are we finding those moments to [...] disrupt the system that's already there? And it's easy to fall into that trap because we're basically judged, a lot of us, on how well we're doing in our jobs based on these kinds of practical efficiencies [...] But where do we find the time to think about other things that we could be doing within our departments? [...] Part of this is finding that balance of knowing that [...] you have limited staff/time, limited resources, and you need to keep things flowing. But where are your priorities for where you can use your power to make this positive change?"
Activity: Take three minutes to write your reflections on the discussion questions below. We will then discuss them as a group.
Discussion Questions:
Where does my work intersect with collections?
How do we balance productivity with reflection on our practices?
Discussion notes:
Case Study: Diversity Audit (~15 minutes)
Background: We will shift now to looking at examples of work other libraries are doing to assess and improve their collections. In this section, we will look at a case study example of a diversity audit at the Denver Public Library. DPL began a diversity audit in 2017 for 10% of their adult fiction collection (42,000+ titles). They audited randomly selected titles and regularly promoted items.
Method:
1. Compile list books to be audited
2. Create Google form to be filled out for each book
3. Recruit coworkers to help
4. Compile the results
The DPL took the information from their audit to create a picture of what diversity looks like in their collection, pinpoint gaps, and dictate their future purchasing practices. They also had the goal to repeat the audit in 5-10 years to evaluate their diversity. At DPL, they are encouraging all staff to incorporate diverse titles in staff picks, personalized reading lists, bookmarks, public blog posts, etc. Staff involved with the audit were volunteers and it was open to librarians and library staff.
Goals after audit:
Include BIPOC authors to 40-60% in all advisory tools (book lists, personalized reading lists, blog posts, and bookmarks)
Add Google form for public comment
Increase staff knowledge
Avoid centering white voices
Discussion Questions:
DPL focused on fiction titles and used the identity of characters and authors as a measurement for diversity in the collection. Could this type of audit work for a science collection with different measurements for diversity utilized? What measurements could we use?
Could a diversity audit be initiated to include both librarians and library staff? What do you think about the option to volunteer? Could staff be part of different steps in the audit process?
Discussion notes:
Anti-Racism and Collection Strategies (~20 Minutes)
Background: A collections audit is one example of an action that libraries can take to assess diversity in their collections. We also asked you to look at the MIT Task Force report on social justice initiatives within their library. The MIT Task Force "identified broad areas in which the MIT Libraries could advance the values of diversity, inclusion, and social justice" and we thought their strategies could be useful for us as a similarly large, science-focused set of libraries. We asked you to read their strategy section on Representation of Marginalized Perspectives from the 2017 report.
Task Force Strategy Section 2 Brief Summary:
Activity: Take three minutes to look through the list of strategies, your notes from the pre-work reflection, and read the discussion questions below. We will then discuss as a group.
Discussion Questions:
Which concerns do these strategies address?
What work are we already doing that is represented in these strategies?
Which strategies require buy in from the Library?
Which strategies would have the largest impact on the makeup of our collections? On how users interact with our collections?
Are there strategies that are missing from the list?
Could any of these strategies (or others we have discussed) be the foundation of a collections goal for next year?
Discussion notes:
Wrap Up (<5 Minutes)
[Provide information about the follow up feedback survey]