Creating a Social Justice Mindset: Incorporating Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice into all Aspects of Collections Work at MIT Libraries

Creating a Social Justice Mindset: Incorporating Diversity, Inclusion, and Social Justice into all Aspects of Collections Work at MIT Libraries

Fireplace Lounge

Academic librarians are increasingly embracing diversity, inclusion, and social justice as values essential to our profession. The MIT Libraries has made a commitment to promoting the values of diversity, inclusion and social justice throughout the entire organization, and has sponsored a task force of the Collections Directorate to identify opportunities for archives, cataloging, acquisitions, preservation, and collections strategy staff to promote diversity, inclusion, and social justice in all aspects of library collections work. Over the course of eight months, the task force explored the topic philosophically and pragmatically. In our final report, we emphasized issues of economic justice, systems of oppression and privilege based on race, religion, gender expression, sexual orientation, class, and ability that place groups at an advantage over others; and provided definitions of “diversity,” “inclusion,” and “social justice.” The recommendations suggest ways in which the Collections Directorate staff can disrupt these systems of privilege and oppression with specific regard to the scholarly publishing and academic library marketplace, representation of marginalized perspectives, community inclusion and outreach, and building organizational infrastructure. This poster presents the task force's recommendations and will provide conference attendees with concrete examples of how collections staff can demonstrate a commitment to these values in the course of their daily work.