Every two years, the Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL) publishes in College & Research Libraries News an article on the top trends and issues affecting academic libraries and the change our institutions are experiencing. We are highlighting some of these trends through blog posts over this academic year, including: supporting student well-being post-pandemic; open access and equitable publishing; AI and AI literacy; open science and reproducibility; open pedagogy and instructional design; and disrupting and reconceiving collection practices.
Introduction
Reconceiving collection practices is one of the top ten trends emerging among academic libraries. Librarians have come to accept that their collections exclude scholarship written by women and persons of color (ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee, 234). To address the existing imbalance in their collections, libraries are working to include diverse viewpoints and authorships in their selections. Unfortunately, libraries’ intentions may be limited by challenges such as inadequate indexing, staffing, and funds that can hamper such efforts. In one case study, librarians at the Colorado State University Library are taking small steps to change their selection process and spotlight diverse parts of pre-existing collections.
Changes to Acquisition Policies: One Library’s Journey
To address inadequate collections, librarians are changing their acquisition methods to create more diverse collections. One library started with small changes to their acquisition criteria. Librarians at Colorado State University (CSU) recognized that traditional measurements of usage and circulation numbers inhibited selecting and maintaining diverse collections. They found works on diverse topics were at risk for being weeded due entirely to circulation numbers (Watson, 102). The librarians changed their acquisition practices to purchase diverse material and spotlight pre-existing works in their collections. They identified several book awards granted each year to works on diverse topics. They set up a policy with their book vendor to ensure that each year’s recipient of the various identified awards would be automatically purchased and added to the library collection (Watson, 105). While the total number of diverse texts added each year would only increase incrementally, this policy change was a good starting point.
The librarians realized purchasing a few more books a year would not be enough; they needed to advertise the new material as well. They promoted the new award winning titles through book displays and digital displays on their library website. They also created bookmarks with the new titles updated periodically (Watson, 105). By advertising their new additions, the librarians hoped to encourage usage and circulation of the diverse collections.
The librarians also solicited input from students on what additional diverse texts the library should purchase. They created surveys asking what books should be acquired by the library. The surveys were sent to students in an introductory college program. Feedback from the surveys factored into the librarians’ acquisition decisions (Watson, 106). These efforts, among others, enabled the librarians to begin building a more diverse and inclusive library book collection.
Challenges to Changing Acquisition Policies
Challenges to changing acquisition policies exist and persist. A few challenges to consider include cataloging and staffing limitations. Identifying diverse works for acquisition or even just works in a preexisting collection can be challenging. Limitations in cataloging systems help to explain the challenge librarians face. An aspect of this issue is the limitations of subject headings and metadata in cataloging material. Works which are part of a new field or new concept are often not adequately described in cataloging systems with pre-existing subject headings. The existing categories can at times prove inadequate or defective in describing diverse works. Famous works which later generations might hail as integral to a diverse topic are left in their original subject classification (Jahnke, 172) and this can hinder discovery. Furthermore, even librarians struggle with locating diverse materials. The CSU librarian committee tried to use their catalog’s search features to try and identify already purchased diverse texts. They struggled to find relevant materials in their own collection due to the subject terms used for material in their collection (Watson, 104). If trained librarians’ search for diverse material floundered, how can patrons less familiar with the catalog be able to locate diverse titles? Librarians should be mindful not only of the type of works they acquire but also how these works are integrated into their collections.
The challenge of acquiring diverse titles is further hampered by librarian’s lack of knowledge and time. When making acquisition decisions, librarians have to parse through a wide range of works. Having the skill set to identify works either by diverse authors and/or material on a diverse topic is crucial (Jahnke, 176). Librarians may also have to educate themselves on topics which they are not familiar with. The CSU library staff attended seminars on diversity to better understand the topics they would be engaging with. By doing so, they better understood the need to build a diverse collection (Watson, 103). While these initiatives can be beneficial, they do take time. That is time which some libraries and librarians simply do not have.
Conclusion
Despite cataloging and staffing challenges, libraries and librarians are continuing to build and promote diverse collections. By implementing these changes, librarians aim to provide their patrons with an increasingly diverse library collections and experience. Instead of trying to enact sweeping changes to their library collections, some librarians start with smaller goals (ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee, 234). With these small steps, librarians are embracing a more diverse scholarship field.
Charles Gallagher is a Research and Instruction Librarian at The Catholic University of America Libraries.
References
ACRL Research Planning and Review Committee. (2024). 2024 Top Trends in Academic Libraries: A Review of the Trends and Issues. College & Research Libraries News, 85(6). https://crln.acrl.org/index.php/crlnews/article/view/26379/34322.
Jahnke, L. M., K. Tanaka, and C.A. Palazzolo. (2022). Ideology, Policy, and Practice: Structural Barriers to Collections Diversity in Research and College Libraries. College & Research Libraries, 83(2), 166. https://doi.org/10.5860/crl.83.2.166.
Watson, R. J., Thomas, K., and Kristine Nowak. (2023). Adhocking It: Overcoming the Overwhelm to Start Creating Equitable and Inclusive Collections Now. In A. Brissett, and D. Moronta (Eds.), Practicing Social Justice in Libraries (pp. 100–116). Routledge.
Further Reading
Bernhardt, L. M., and B. Neel. (2022). When the Vendor Becomes the Library: Systems, Values, and the Commodification of Social Justice in Academic Collections. Journal of Information Ethics, 31(2), 26–37. https://doi.org/10.2307/JIE.31.2.26.
Bledsoe, Kara, Danielle Miriam Cooper, Roger C. Schonfeld, and Oya Y. Rieger, “Leading by Diversifying Collections: A Guide for Academic Library Leadership” (Ithaka S+R, November 9, 2022), https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.317833.
Bright, Matthew, Yoko Ferguson, David Heilbrun, and Jacqueline Saavedra. (2024). Reparative Cataloging at the Washington Research Library Consortium. In Billey, Amber, Elizabeth Nelson, and Rebecca Uhl, (Eds.) Inclusive Cataloging: Histories, Context, and Reparative Approaches. Chicago: ALA Editions, 2024. https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/downloads/nc580n484?disposition=inline&locale=en