Diversity Audit Power is a poster in the 2020 PNLA Virtual Poster Session. We encourage you to engage in discussion by leaving a comment on the page. The author of the poster will respond to comments the week of August 4-7, 2020.
Presenter: Kathleen Story, Eastlake High School (WA) & Brian Hanser, Follett School Solutions
Track: Public & School Libraries
Abstract: Learn about the power of doing a diversity audit for your school library collection. How can data inform our practice as agents of change in the world of education and information access? We can make our collections accurately reflect the people in our communities and across the globe. We have no control over the actions of others on a large scale, but we can control what we offer to our patrons and students in our libraries. Instead of perpetuating negative stereotypes and harmful tropes our collections can be beacons of own voices stories and authors. Students and patrons deserve to feel included and safe when they browse and search our collections no matter who they are or where they come from. This session can provide some guidance and tools for any librarians looking to start this journey of transforming your collection with the lense of equity. We have the power!
Poster:
About the Presenters:
Kathleen Story has been a high school librarian for twelve years in the Pacific Northwest.
Brian Hanser (bhanser@follett.com) is a sales consultant for Follett and has worked with Kathleen and other librarians in Washington State school districts to improve their collections, especially for equity and diversity.
Chat with the Presenters:
Kathleen and Brian will be available to chat in real time via comments, Friday, August 7, 8:00am-3:00pm (Pacific time). Can’t make it during these times? Don’t worry! Leave a comment and they will get back to you.
Very timely information. We are challenged in our academic library with this very thing. I wanted to ask Brian about what is the process for something to be tagged? How does Follet work to insure that these accurate. For example, would the The Story of Ishi have a diversity tag or would someone have to apply additional criteria like Kathleen is doing?
Rick – feel free to contact me offline so that we can discuss. bhanser@follett.com
Thanks Brian!
Thank you for your question. Our session is actually tomorrow, Aug 7th so he will be able to respond tomorrow. I suspect his answer will be that they use the standard tools for tagging subjects, and also that since terms change there is no perfect way to insure 100% accuracy. That’s where our industry knowledge and expertise has to fill the gaps.
I was going to look up how it was cataloged in my system but then I realized, ooops I weeded it. So I looked it up in our public library. They don’t have the same copy that I do but they have an ebook version and this is what the tags show
I don’t, however, know what system our public library uses for MARC recrods and management. Maybe Circe Dynex (sorry if I spelled that wrong). I also need to let my public librarian peeps know about all the harmful terms and context so they can consider weeding it. Thank you for your question! What’s really scary is that it is now available for streaming on Amazon and all those reviews except a few (one added by me) rave about it. One of the negative reviews is by a First Nation person who says they have Yana friends, so yeah, not dead.
Dear Rick and anyone else I replied to,
If the reply name says Alexander Story it’s still me, Kathleen. I guess it autofills for my husband first (darn) and I didn’t notice at first.
This is important work. Thanks so much for sharing. I was not aware of nativeappropriations.com but will utilize it moving forward. On a somewhat related note, an article appeared in the NYT yesterday about the Spokane Indians baseball team, the relationship between the Spokane People and the team, and who gets to make the call regarding appropriation. It’s an interesting discussion that needs to be had. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and resources.
Going to have to read that article about the minor league team in Spokane. Thanks for the heads up.
That is a great suggestion. Another great resource for advice on representation of First Nation or American Indian in young adult literature is the blog by Debbie Reese American Indians in Children’s Literature https://americanindiansinchildrensliterature.blogspot.com/