Submitted by: Jennifer Hubert Swan

One major goal for this year is to look closely at the collections. While we have been working to increase the diversity of the collections for several years, the work has focused on purchasing new materials, rather than examining the collections as a whole; because the publishing industry has long skewed largely white-default, even dedicated purchasing hasn’t balanced our holdings to the extent we would like. We discussed strategies for conducting DEI audits with limited collection access (due to the hybrid model and library spaces currently functioning as classrooms), which makes some audit forms more difficult to undertake. DEI audits are a way of scientifically analyzing a collection, looking at various markers (authorial race, religion, gender, and sexuality; character race, religion, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic class, geographic location, and more). This year, we will focus on auditing, to varying degrees of formality, promoted titles (booktalks, readalouds, Instagram posts, displays if those should happen). The HS will also begin auditing genre collections, specifically romance and horror, two smaller genres that are notably less diverse than the collection as a whole. We also discussed ordering, and examining even more closely the diversity of new materials. 

Programmatically, one initiative is that Early Childhood readalouds this year will contain at least 50% books featuring overtly diverse characters; in beginning to compile books Jesse found that the picture book collection may be statistically diverse but many of the books with BIPOC child characters are either lackluster or stereotypical and in need of replacement with better materials, so the picture book purchasing for 2020-21 will focus on replacing those titles. In research at the MS and HS levels, we will work to note and call out bias in the historical record more explicitly, making it clear that while bias is not inherently bad, it tends to reflect systems, including systems of oppression. Karyn recently worked with 10th grade history on a runaway slave ad project and, as a first pass at this, discussed how historians need to be detectives when it comes to BIPOC stories as white power structures make those stories harder to find. We are also looking at our databases and considering what additional or alternative databases we can provide to make sure BIPOC voices and perspectives are more represented in the digital research materials we provide to students.