Musselman Library’s Inclusion Action Plan
December 2, 2020
Strategies marked with an asterisk ( * ) are to be addressed in FY 2021. A PDF document of this plan is available.
Action Area 1: Access and Equity – Recruitment and Retention (faculty, staff, students)
Goal: Increase diversity within our library and the greater profession of librarianship.
Objective: Expand opportunities for students from groups underrepresented in our field to explore careers in libraries, archives, and/or museums.
Strategies
- Reimagine Holley Internship in order to create a new “pathway” to our field. *
- A working group will bring options to department heads by 1/31/21
- Improve recruitment practices in order to increase diversity of applicant pools and hires in higher-level student positions (internships, fellowships, etc.). *
- Wertzberger and Library Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Collect demographic data about student applicants and assess how well it mirrors the diversity of the overall student body (in progress)
- Wertzberger and Library Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Build connections with local schools to provide job shadowing or internship opportunities.
- Odess-Harnish and cross-department working group
Objective: Increase diversity of applicant pools and hires for support staff and administrator positions in the library.
Strategies
- If we are permitted to fill vacancies: audit and revise job descriptions for inclusive language. *
- Research & Instruction
- Update job description and ad for First Year Experience Librarian, Spring 2021
- Research & Instruction
- If we are permitted to fill vacancies to hire: develop positional flexibility in order to accommodate hybrid or remote work.
- Advocate to HR
- Investigate possibility of joining a national library initiative devoted to increasing diversity in our profession (ex: ACRL Diversity Alliance) (would require funding). *
- Dean and Department Heads
- Advocate to HR
Goal: Create, preserve, and enhance access and discovery of collections that feature diverse populations.
Objective: Improve access to resources that highlight the lived experiences, interests, and priorities of diverse populations.
Strategies
- Supplement or update descriptive metadata with inclusive language to address limitations in current Library of Congress subject headings. *
- Technical Services
- Inclusive Language Initiative process began in Spring 2021.
- Evaluate collection practices to increase representation of historically underrepresented groups.*
- Technical Services
- Investigate BIPOC publishers, literary awards, and prizes to add to approval plan
- Advocate for library platforms to include more diverse publishers
- Investigate purchasing from BIPOC-owned businesses
- Analyze select call number ranges in order to target areas for collection development and deaccession
- Technical Services
- Supplement or update descriptive metadata with inclusive language to address limitations in current Library of Congress subject headings. *
- Technical Services
- Create end cap guides to assist with browsing the collection/classification. *
- User Services
Objective: Broaden representation in Special Collections and College Archives.
Strategies
- Actively collect and preserve oral history interviews with members of historically underrepresented communities at Gettysburg College. *
- Special Collections & College Archives
- (in progress – McKinney)
- Special Collections & College Archives
- Prioritize collections that describe the experience of Gettysburgians from non-dominant groups (in metadata work, exhibits, guides, and active collection).
- Special Collections & College Archives
- Digitize negatives from 1960s-1970s in order to make more campus history events discoverable
- Special Collections & College Archives with other partner?
- Update Gettysburg College: A Diversity Story (timeline originally created by Ivana Lopez Espinosa)
- Special Collections & College Archives
Action Area 2: Campus Climate
Goal: Improve campus climate.
Objective: Ensure that our physical space is welcoming and affirming for everyone in our community. *
Strategies
- Perform audit of our public spaces (with special attention to artwork and what is communicated by collections in high-traffic areas).
- User Services
- Examine placement of and language use in signage.
- User Services
- Establish student advisory committee and solicit that group for feedback and input.
- User Services
- Build connections with other groups/departments on campus to hold events in building.
- User Services
Objective: Ensure that our virtual space is welcoming and affirming for everyone in our community.
Strategies
- Conduct usability testing.
- Web Advisory Committee
- Establish student advisory committee and solicit that group for feedback and input.
- Web Advisory Committee
- User Services
Action Area 3: Diversity in Curriculum/Co-curriculum
Goal: Contribute to a more equitable student learning experience inside and outside of the classroom.
Objective: Employ inclusive teaching strategies when delivering information literacy instruction, workshops, or staff training in order to address the needs of individuals with a variety of backgrounds and learning differences.
Strategies
- Prioritize professional development opportunities for library staff about inclusive and anti-racist teaching practices with applications for in and outside the classroom. *
- Department Heads and Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Provide at least two workshops or webinars for library staff per academic year (facilitated by Gettysburg staff or from national organizations)
- Department Heads and Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Revise the Teaching Square program (teaching development program) to include a goal for all participants around inclusive and anti-racist teaching. *
- Research & Instruction
- Provide an opportunity each semester for teaching librarians to participate in a teaching square
- Research & Instruction
- Ensure that examples used in class visits, instruction sessions, exhibits, LibGuides, and online tutorials feature diverse lived experiences and are discussed in the context of the historical era and present-day reflections. *
- Research & Instruction & Special Collections
- Ongoing, but someone should audit existing LibGuides and tutorials
- Research & Instruction & Special Collections
Objective: Create flexible and accessible teaching and learning spaces in order to support all learners and current teaching practices.
Strategies
- Complete updates to the library classroom (room 014) to improve accessibility, promote active teaching practices, and incorporate flexible technology for multi-modal instruction post COVID-19. *
- Research & Instruction
- Complete an assessment of the renovated classroom’s impact on student learning and teaching in AY 2021-22
- Research & Instruction
- Develop other spaces in the library that support the post-COVID 19 diverse learning needs for all students, including spaces that can facilitate individual or small group work in person or remotely.
- User Services
- Complete a space assessment and consult relevant professional literature for how students use existing library space post-COVID 19 and articulate their needs for study, collaboration, etc.
- User Services
Objective: Ensure that collections of online tutorials and other digital learning objects are accessible to all learners and follow best practices for accessibility and inclusive design.
Strategies
- Provide training and support for librarians and staff to create online learning objects (e.g. tutorials, video, LibGuides) that are accessible and inclusive. *
- Research & Instruction
- Conduct a formal accessibility audit of newly created digital learning objects at the end of each semester
- Research & Instruction
Objective: Explore interest in and develop a campus wide Textbook Affordability Initiative.
Strategies
- Reconceive library services as a spectrum of support for textbook affordability. *
- Scholarly Communications & others
- Update website and other public-facing materials to clearly communicate our range of services
- Scholarly Communications & others
- Educate and support faculty who eliminate or reduce course costs through using Open Educational Resources (OER), library-licensed materials, and Course Reserves. *
- Scholarly Communications
Objective: Reexamine library policies that impact students unevenly.
Strategies
- Evaluate student loan policies and fines, which disproportionately impact BIPOC (currently, employees are not charged fines).
- User Services
Objective: Focus library programming and exhibits/displays on promoting dialogue for social change and bridging difference.
Strategies
- Reconceptualize longstanding programming and develop new initiatives with key campus partners that highlight voices and experiences of underrepresented groups.
- Library leadership
- Marketing Committee
- Exhibits Committee
- Highlight experiences of diverse populations and include contextual discussions of historical and current events in library exhibits.
- Technical Services
- Use main floor thematic micro-collections to promote awareness of current events and highlight diverse collections.
- Technical Services
Action Area 4: Organizational Learning
Goal: Prioritize on-going professional development for library staff about diversity, equity, and inclusion in libraries and higher education.
Objective: Encourage and support intercultural learning for every library employee.
Strategies
- Require library-wide IDI participation (note: it will be required of all new hires beginning Jan 2021).
- Library Dean
- Track in annual report
- Library Dean
- Create more local opportunities to talk about anti-racist library practices, critical librarianship, feminist practices in librarianship, etc. Small groups, etc.*
- Department Heads
- Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Provide on-going opportunities for reading, viewing, discussions. *
- Diversity & Inclusion Committee
- Share conference learnings
- Dean & Department Heads
Goal: Promote the library as a learning resource for everyone on campus.
Objective: Support individual intercultural development
Note: many goals in Action Area 3: Diversity in Curriculum/Co-curriculum also support this action area
Strategies
- Continue updating and promoting the Antiracism reading list and resources in OverDrive/MUSCAT Plus.
- Technical Services