UWB/CC Campus Library Commitments to Anti-Racism: Anti-Racist Information Literacy & Digital Scholarship

As an organization dedicated to providing access to resources and skills in information literacy, the Campus Library is committed to performing our functions with an anti-racist lens. Anti-racist work should not only happen in times of national crisis and protest, but should be an inextricable part of our basic functions and mission.

Our broad commitments are as follows: 

• Publish resources and digital scholarship that report and illuminate the lived experiences of Black people and that combat disinformation.
• Provide access to resources on current and historic anti-racist direct action and activist movements to empower students, staff, and faculty.
• Facilitate and support the work of faculty and students who are creating anti-racist open and digital scholarship.
• Center diverse voices in building library collections.
• Implement anti-racist teaching practices in the classroom and throughout all public services.

As we take action on each of these commitments, we will detail it below.

Publish resources and digital scholarship that report and illuminate the lived experiences of Black people and that combat disinformation.

Provide access to resources on current and historic anti-racist direct action and activist movements to empower students, staff, and faculty.

   Summer 2020

• Created a resource guide with information about different forms of civic action, from voting to contacting representatives to safely protesting and participating in direct action. While this guide does not directly refer to any specific movements (beyond mention of the Black Lives Matter protests), it is meant to be a general reference guide to empower and support involvement in activist work.

Facilitate and support the work of faculty and students who are creating anti-racist open and digital scholarship.

Center diverse voices in building library collections.

   Summer 2020

• Set an intention to rework the library’s collection development philosophy in a way that reflects an explicit commitment to diversity and inclusion.  We will provide updates on this process as it moves through different stages.

Implement anti-racist teaching practices in the classroom and throughout all public services.

   Summer 2020

• Completed the revision of the library’s information literacy learning goals, which  deepened and made more explicit our commitment to teaching information literacy through an equity, diversity and inclusion lens.
• Set an intention to rework the library’s teaching philosophy statement in a way that reflects an explicit commitment to engaging in anti-racist teaching practices.