Applications of Diversity Language to Descriptions of Collection Development Activities at Academic Libraries: An Exploratory Analysis of Strategic Plans and Diversity Information Webpages

Authors

David Macaulay, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

2023

Citation

Journal of Academic Librarianship (2023) 49(4): 102739

doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2023.102739.

Comments

Copyright 2023, Elsevier. Used by permission

Abstract

Diversity is commonly invoked as a goal for libraries in a variety of domains, including collections. This study explores how diversity language is used to characterize collection development efforts at a sample of large North American academic libraries, through content analysis of strategic planning documents as well as library webpages providing information about diversity efforts. The topic of collection diversity was found to be not consistently addressed in these documents. While 90% of the institutions whose strategic plans were examined mentioned diversity in some way, less than half of these did so in relation to collections; about one-third of the libraries with diversity information pages omitted reference to collections in these documents. Strategic plans and webpages that mentioned collection diversity often did so cursorily, and in vague terms that lacked specific details about the nature and purpose of diversification. This indicates that the academic libraries still have far to go in developing a shared conceptualization of what collection diversity involves. Analysis of updated documents, retrieved two years after the initial sample, suggests that there may be increasing attention to social justice concerns in these contexts, which would potentially enable greater precision in discussions of collection diversification.