Submitted by: Karyn Silverman
The following notes are from the joint Library and Educational Technology Departments. We work closely and will have only five faculty between the two departments across all three divisions next year, all of whom were present at this meeting.
Positive movement regarding DEI initiatives:
Although this has been a complex year to navigate, true for all but specifically for Library and Technology complicated by lack of access to our spaces (both libraries and the Tech Commons at 6th Ave were repurposed to accommodate distancing and space requirements as dictated by the DOH), we are happy to report that we did manage to move forward in several target areas.
From a content access perspective, the librarians continued their work building a more inclusive, diverse collection; publishing has centered specific stories (generally focused on white, American, cis-het characters) and our collections have reflected that bias in available material. The recent explosion of greater diversity in the authors and experiences being published allowed us to significantly overhaul areas of concern. Specific areas of focus this year were picture books at the 6th Ave campus and the romance collection at the Charlton campus. Focal areas in picture books were greater representation of POC and female characters and authors. In romance, focal areas were greater POC rep and less heteronormative focus.
The librarians also significantly expanded our digital holdings, particularly recreational reading material in e and audio formats. This has been an on-going initiative, but was particularly critical this year to support fully remote students. There was some overlap between fully remote students and race and fully remote students and socioeconomic status, and increasing these collections meant those students were not further disenfranchised by lack of access to school resources. Expanding the audio collection is also a boon to neurodiverse students. Digital literature also allows students who may be working through questions of sexuality or gender to read freely without fear of anyone being aware of what they are reading, although we don’t know how significant an issue that is for members of our community.
Finally, we examined what books we promote passively and actively, and we began the process of auditing the books selected for readalouds (6th Ave) and promotion on the library Instagram (Charlton) and increasingly expanding the representation in the books we center. As part of this process, for the 2nd year running, our HS summer reading list focuses on generally underrepresented voices (works in translation, works set in other countries, works by and about authors and characters of color across all genres, greater representation of LGBTQ+ authors and stories, and almost all books available in audio as well as print and e-print).
From an equipment access perspective, this year marked a hige increase of getting devices into the hands of lower and middle school students. We hope to be able to continue this level of access and support even as the pandemic draws to a close.
When it comes to information access and awareness, the HS digital and information curriculum for grades 9 & 10 has continued work on finding sources that show women and POC in the fields of information science and digital studies. Our focus on teaching media literacy continues to use current and topical case studies that reflect an issue of social justice (e.g.: connecting cultural appropriation in TikTok to copyright; studying algorithms through the lens of human biases and social inequity).
Challenges:
The biggest challenge has been working within patriarchal systems of communication. We are a predominantly female department (whether considered jointly or separately) and our work is often complicated or stopped by a lack of communication from male administrators. Regardless of intent, the impact is that we feel left out of important conversations, and that our expertise in our content and pedagogy is neither respected nor included in policy and decision making.
Lack of materials: we continue to be frustrated that we cannot always find research materials that center experiences other than white, cis-het, usually male perspectives; this is a particular issue with databases.
Looking forward, the lack of staff will be a challenge. Fewer staff means a lack of equity for our students. The libraries (which at 6th Ave encompasses the Tech Commons) have long been spaces that allow students to stay at school until 5 or 6 pm. For students who may not have printing or robust internet connections, or a quiet workspace at home, this access is crucial to their academic success. Looking beyond the academic, the long hours have also allowed students who live far from the school and far from one another to spend social time together. With the staffing reductions in our library faculty and staff next year, we will not be able to provide this level of access.
Ways we would like to be supported:
- More training in facilitating DEI conversations
- Regular meetings to talk through what it means to de-colonize research materials, something we know needs to happen but is hard to do when the easily available resources are not always what we want
- Regular conversations about equity and access in materials (tech, research materials, books) and access (facilities, equipment)
- Help in identifying other ways that we can advance schoolwide DEI initiatives through our information and digital literacy curriculum, and technology integration in general.
What to know about our department:
We are thrilled Kalil will be joining LREI and looking forward to working with him!
We work well together and prefer to work collaboratively, whether with each other or with our divisional colleagues. Our focus is on learning — our own and that of others — and our modality is support and connection.
We are in the midst of a massive reorganization; this is a moment of flux and we are struggling to navigate the balance between growth and function. This reorganization has left us understaffed to a degree that will slow our forward momentum on DEI work. We are eager to do the work, but we feel limited by external institutional factors (staffing and money; structures that disempower our department). We are deeply embedded in the pedagogical and progressive mission of the school and responsible for many services that support students and faculty across all divisions, which means that if we cannot keep our momentum, we risk stagnation or backwards movement that will effect many other departments, particularly in as regards entrenched dominant and supremacist voices in research and reading material and as regards access to technology that can be used to support mission-drive, project-based progressive teaching in the classrooms.