“Who Are We Missing?” Conducting a Diversity Audit in a Liberal Arts College Library

Doyle, Brenna

Emerson, M. E., & Lehman, L. G. (2022). Who are we missing? Conducting a diversity audit in a liberal arts college library. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, 48(3), 102517-. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2022.102517

Summary: Emerson and Lehman’s 2022 article takes a look at the amount of diversity within the collections at Augustana College in order to determine what gaps may currently exist. This article also specifies that when conducting a diversity audit, one must be sure to settle on a focus for their audit and determine an audit methodology. For this particular study, Emerson and Lehman focused their audit on three different aspects of identity: gender, sexuality, and race. Further, they defined criteria to be audited as physical books that were part of the library’s permanent collection, written by a single author, and published between 2000 and 2022. In order to assess gender, the researchers started their auditing process by creating a list of pronouns that may be in the collection, while allowing for additional pronouns that did not fit into the initial categories. When assessing sexuality, they took a look at whether the authors identified themselves as being in an opposite sex relationship, a same sex relationship, or if they specified themselves as being part of the LGBTQ+ community. When assessing race and ethnicity, the researchers looked to see how the authors self-identified and categorized race and ethnicity into: white, American Indian/Alaskan Native, Asian/Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, Black, Latinx, Middle Eastern, Biracial/Multiracial, and unknown. The results of the audit showed that a majority of the books in the library’s general academic collection were written by authors with the pronouns he/him, while authors with the pronouns they/them made up only around 0.16% of the general collection. The sexuality audit had more inconclusive results, as around 61% of the authors were unable to be determined, though of the ones determined, the majority were in opposite sex relationships, with only 1% of the authors self-identifying at being part of the LGBTQ+ community. Finally, the race and ethnicity audit revealed that the authors in the library collection were 71.38% white, while BIPOC authors made up only 13.38% of the collection. When comparing the results of the diversity audit with 2019 Census data, it became clear that the library was overrepresenting White authors and that the race and ethnicity category was the only category higher than the national average. The article concludes with notions of building connections within the community to better build a more diverse and inclusive collection. 

Opinion: The results of the diversity audit at Augustana College were, for me, unfortunately unsurprising. The audit revealed that, within Tredway Library, the general collection was predominantly authored by white, straight men, while female, LGBTQ+, and BIPOC authors typically were in the minority. There are many reasons why this could be, starting with the fact that straight, white men have historically had greater privilege than those in the minority, and their works may be more prevalent or featured more heavily, leading to their greater presence within the library. In 2022, and even now in 2025, I believe society is still making strides for more inclusivity and diversity in our daily lives, let alone within library collections. I wholeheartedly agree with Emerson and Lehman, however, that students being unable to find their own representation within the library sends the message that their voices cannot be authoritative, that their perspectives do not matter. Connecting with the communities is an excellent idea and could definitely aid in the library’s crusade to further their collection diversity, and though this article focuses on leaning on social media to connect with diverse authors and diverse-owned bookstores, I think there should be a significant emphasis on academic libraries partnering with university clubs and programs, such as the LGBTQ+ center, Black Student Union, the Cross-Cultural Center, or any university programs that celebrate diversity. Community connections are just as essential a resource as any book collection in the library, and it’s an excellent way for libraries to foster a diverse environment. 

Rightsizing the Academic Library Collection by Suzanne M. Ward

 

By Adame, Katelynn

  Ward, S. M. (2015). Rightsizing the academic library collection. ALA Editions, an imprint of the American Library Association.

Summary: 

Ward's Rightsizing the academic library collection provides a new take on the deselection/weeding process. Always a daunting task, the book proposes the solution of rightsizing for academic libraries. The book begins my evaluating some of the challenges faced by academic libraries, including collaborative efforts, instruction design, employee relation, online learning, enrollment consideration, data collection, diversity, and more. Ward points out that libraries, "need to prove not only that their services benefit the institutions students and faculty, but also that these services are an integral part of student and faculty success," (p. 3). Where collections are concerned, issues of space, quality, and usability are all considerations when advocating for the growth of the library and their collections. Collection curation and deselection criteria should constantly be evolving to meet the needs of students, however, predicting the needs can be difficult, leaving library staff trailing behind while students advance. Large, unruly collections can be difficult to maintain and use, posing potential risks to funding and accessibility of the library collection. Ward does cover some traditional methods of weeding, and while these values still have merit, they may not necessarily be the best solution for academic libraries. The concept of Rightsizing requires libraries to assess their collections and evaluate what a suitable collection may look like for their institution. Rightsizing implements a plan that clearly "state the project’s objectives, staffing assignments, available resources, importance and relationship to the library’s primary goals, expected time frame for a large retroactive effort, measures of success, and strategy for ongoing maintenance," (p. 49). Instead of an annual practice, rightsizing transform the practice of deselection into an ongoing practice that is integral to the lifecycle management of an overall collection. The goal is to ultimately utilize space as best as possible while providing a collection that is usable, accessible, and offers students multiple avenues of information access. 

Evaluation/Review: 

As someone who works in a library with an unruly collection, this was an invaluable resource. Weeding has been an ongoing issue for our institution. Our general collection is full of outdated and unused material. While we continue to get new materials, our old materials seem to never leave. This leaves our collection daunting and unusable for students. I believe Ward has posed some excellent solutions through Rightsizing. Her solution of creating a weeding plan and criteria to generate an ongoing process of weeding can be helpful for librarians who do not have the time or resources to complete the laborious task of weeding. Rightsizing offers a means of maintain a collection that is realistic, manageable, and suitable to your staffing and institutional needs. For individuals in academic libraries, balancing collection management alongside other duties as liaisons, instructors, committee members, and more can be daunting. Typically, the practice of weeding gets pushed aside, leaving a collection in less than ideal condition. Rightsizing might be an excellent solution for information professionals who are looking to manage an unruly collection. 

How AI might change academic library work

Hannah Prince



Cox, A. (2023). How artificial intelligence might change academic library work: Applying the competencies literature and the theory of the professions. Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, 74(3), 367–380. https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.24635


This article focuses on how AI can be applied to knowledge discovery. It analyzes eleven different potential approaches libraries might adopt - and these “applications are analyzed and their likelihood evaluated”. The paper also assesses how outside factors might influence how AI is adopted by those in academic libraries.

The paper covers a variety of topics, including analyzing the “theory of professions” and debating different iterations of what they call, “hybrid professional” roles - where a librarian can use AI to meld the skills of a librarian, a researcher, and an archivist all into one role. I did appreciate the multiple table examples used throughout the paper, it was a useful representation of data and helped to communicate the range of approaches that people are taking when incorporating AI into their profession.

Despite initial pessimism, this paper comes to the eventual conclusion that AI is inevitable in libraries, but doesn’t necessarily have to come at the expense of librarians' jobs. In fact, AI can integrate into librarians’ roles and the author goes as far as to say that, “it might be considered fair to be optimistic, therefore, that librarianship will adapt, even be strengthened through this process.” Increasingly we see librarians playing a hybrid role that is part managerial, part customer service, part academic - but often less of the “classically trained librarian”. AI can be incorporated into that hybrid role better than into the classical librarian role. As with most think pieces about AI, it summarizes ways that the library industry will be irrevocably changed by AI, but professes that the individuals in the industry will adapt rather than be wholly replaced. I did not think that this article was necessarily groundbreaking or saying anything new, but I liked how they approached the subject and how the author broke down the different sections. And as mentioned previously, I thought the use of tables was super helpful to get the author’s point across.

Library Technology for a User-Centered Future in Academic Libraries

Lee, Amy

Citation:

Evans, G., & Schonfeld, R. C. (2020, January 23). It’s not what libraries hold; it’s who libraries serve: Seeking a user-centered future for academic libraries. Ithaka S + R. https://doi.org/10.18665/sr.312608
 

Summary:

The OhioLINK consortium’s Transforming the Integrated Library Systems (ILS) working group engaged the nonprofit consulting agency Ithaka S + R to help with research and development of their vision for the ILS of the future- a library management system that is truly user-centered (instead of print-collections centered) and empowers academic libraries to align services with their academic institution’s strategic direction to “support student success, research excellence, and broad community engagement”. This report first covers the shortcomings of the ILS products prevalent in the market today, which were created for the management of largely print collections and have not been adequately updated to meet the shifts to management of larger, digital, shared, and distributed collections and system connections. The highlight of this report presents the OhioLINK working group’s detailed vision of an ILS system of the future that allows academic libraries to continue fulfilling their core business function (the management of print and library collections) while also being strategically updated in four key areas to serve their users and their academic communities optimally based on recent trends in academic research, learning, and teaching: user-focused systems, facilitated collections, institutional integration, and integrated business intelligence. 

Evaluation:

This report is helpful for systems librarians evaluating ILS products used for their academic library as well as for strategic planning for library systems, services, and management as we embrace the increasingly digital and user-focused library collection. It offers insights into the shortcomings of present ILS systems, trends in academic library collection management and e-resource usage, and potential solutions for creating an ILS product that offers enhancement of library services. This class has studied how libraries are updating collection and connection development strategies to remain relevant and useful in the Digital Age, and it was interesting to see that library systems/technological products used to manage these collections have not only failed to keep up with recent shifts to the increased usage of digital resources, but may actively inhibit libraries from realizing their full service potential. 

This study contained many interesting findings about current academic library user behaviors and needs, technological capabilities required by academic library staff to manage their print and digital collections, and the technological features that are missing and necessary in ILS products that could address these user and staff needs. One finding I found particularly interesting was that academic library users (primarily students and faculty of an academic institution) do not start their resource discovery and access journey at the library as a physical or virtual starting point, but are often funneled into an academic library’s ILS system from elsewhere like Google or Google Scholar searches. Given these findings, the study's recommendation for providing seamless access to library resources based on a user’s entitlements across a variety of groups, including public library, alma mater, current institution, and other institutional affiliations, is an ILS feature that would be especially beneficial for users that does not currently have a straightforward implementation. 

Performing these research and visioning exercises is a great way to assess the current performance of library technologies, evaluate library collection and service goals in both idealized (without having to worry about technical limitations) and realistic forms,  and actively identify next steps to ensure a library is making progress in both technology development and strategic planning that aligns with their overarching vision for collection and connection development.

A university-wide collaborative effort to designing a makerspace at an academic health sciences library

Herron, J., & Kaneshiro, K. (2017). A university-wide collaborative effort to designing a makerspace at an academic health sciences library. Medical Reference Services Quarterly, 36(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1080/02763869.2017.1259878

Summary:

Herron and Kaneshiro’s article presents the process taken by the Ruth Lilly Medical Library’s new Tech Team at the Indiana University School of Medicine in designing and creating a makerspace. A heavy emphasis is made on the collaboration between the Tech Team and a variety of campus groups and departments. The paper is structured in a way that parallels the steps in which the Tech Team took in their process. First, conducting an environmental scan consisted of accumulating resources, meeting with other staff members with 3D printing expertise, and identifying who would be potential user groups. This collaborative step of speaking with students, staff, and faculty informed the Tech Team’s proposed focus for the makerspace to provide a gateway to 3D printing and prototyping. The team promoted the new service through word of mouth, sample prints, and an opportunity fair while the physical space was renovated to better serve as a makerspace. This paper offers a comprehensive synthesis of the collaborative process taken by the Tech Team in designing and building a successful makerspace within an academic library. 

Evaluation:

The relevance of Herron and Kaneshiro’s article lies in its value to academic libraries who are at the beginning of their journey to design and build their own makerspaces. The emphasis on collaboration between library staff and other university members provides valuable insight for library staff unfamiliar with makerspaces as they can gain a network of connections in their own campus community. Another significant takeaway from this article is how the Tech Team strategized to differentiate their new space from other similar 3D printing labs in the university. This resource can help library staff to position their own makerspaces in relation to specialized academic libraries, such as medical academic libraries in this case.

The future of books in an academic library

The article Books and ebooks in an academic library discusses the perdictions the authors had about eBooks popularity in the future. The authors suggested that eBooks will become more popular by 2020 and will increase the number of academic libraries transitioning their collections to have more online materials than physical books. eBook purchases from academic libraries are increasing. The article also discusses the future of journal articles. Print articles are still continuing to be produced, however libraries and scholars are using a lot more electronic resources (Wells & Sallenbach, 2015). This has cause academic librarians to allocate their resources and use their budget to purchase more electronic resources and less physical materials.

I believe that electronic resources are becoming more popular, but they're are still a lot of people that prefer the physical copy of a book. Right now the academic library I work for is focusing their budget on electronic resources.

References

Wells, D. & Sallenbach, A. (2015) Books and ebooks in an academic library. 64:3, 168-179, DOI: 10.1080/00049670.2015.1041216

-Daly, Briana

Collection Development Trends in Academic Libraries

Collection Development Trends in Academic Libraries

Lopez, Liliana

Horava, T., & Levine-Clark, M. (2016). Current trends in collection development practices and policies. Collection Building, 35(4), 97-102. https://doi-org.libaccess.sjlibrary.org/10.1108/CB-09-2016-0025

The article Current Trends in Collection Development Practices and Policies by Tony Horava and Michael Levine Clark delivers the results of a study on current trends and issues in academic library collections. It provides a glimpse of major current collection trends and issues within North American academic libraries. The trends and issues in this study include: the use of collection development policies, demand driven acquisition (DDA) models, big deals, use of the collections budget, rationalizing legacy print collections, stewarding local digital collections, and demonstrating value.

The findings from this study render a deeper understanding of collection development functions within academic libraries. They show evidence that academic libraries use their collections budget to fund many costs other than content —often using funds for memberships and MARC records. Some of the other findings highlight the trend of demand-driven acquisitions (DDA) and an academic library’s willingness to support open access investments. Furthermore, collaborative print rationalization projects are not an academic library’s priority but academic libraries do tend to have at least one collaborative print rationalization project within their collection development plan. Perhaps the most inspiring practices and trends are the innovative ways in which academic libraries demonstrate their value.

Evaluation:

Overall, this article provides a platform to reflect on and compare strategies for academic library collections. It enables academic libraries to share current practices and trends — to build upon them and improve their collection development plans. However, this study is only the start of the conversation, because academic libraries have to continue developing their competitive edge to continue thriving and making the most out of their funds.

Embracing Ebooks : Acquisition and Collection Development Landscape in Philippine Academic Libraries

Sexton, Rachael

Janice D.C. Peñaflor, & Justina Garcia. (2017). Embracing Ebooks : Acquisition and Collection Development Landscape in Philippine Academic Libraries. Journal of Educational Media & Library Sciences, 54(2), 221-232.

Academic libraries became early adopters of e-books.  Some libraries are adopting an approach that prioritizes e-books over physical books.  Philippine academic libraries are also embracing e-books.  This article focuses on acquisition and not on evaluating the collection based on e-book usage.  The authors got their information from a 9-question survey.  Of the 39 Universities sent the survey, 27 responded.  Some of the Universities, amounting to 30%, did not have any e-books.  Another 37% had less than 100 e-book titles.  Libraries need to revise their collection development policy to include e-books.  Among the libraries surveyed, 32% had not added e-books to their collection development policy.  There are matters of budget to be considered as some e-books cost more than their print counterparts.  Over half of the respondents said that 5% of their budget went towards e-books.  Finding the right acquisition model can be challenging.  Less than half of the libraries said that they prefer choosing title by title versus buying packages.  Perpetual access to the e-books was favored by 63% of the libraries.  Consortia help to improve the pricing and simplify business relationships.  Libraries in the Philippines are practicing being a part of consortia.  However, almost 80% of libraries in the Philippines are not part of a consortia.  The major deterrent for not acquiring e-books is that it requires good internet connection.  A lack of standard file format is also a hindrance. 

Evaluation:  This was an interesting article about the current state of e-books and libraries in the Philippines.  The most surprising thing to me was the fact that only 5% of their budget was spent on e-books.  That seems like a small percentage to me.  This article would definitely be useful for other countries just starting out in acquiring e-books. 

LGBTQ Titles in Academic Library Youth Collections

Ramirez, Carmina

Williams, V. K. ginger. williams@wichita. ed., & Deyoe, N. nancy. deyoe@wichita. ed. (2015). LGBTQ Titles in Academic Library Youth Collections. Library Resources & Technical Services, 59(2), 62–71. Retrieved from http://libaccess.sjlibrary.org/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lls&AN=102629829&site=ehost-live&scope=site 

The authors of this study analyzed the LGBTQ collections of academic libraries to find out how well equipped they were. The role of academic libraries is to collect youth literature for student teachers and librarians to evaluate and use books with youth. Their study shoed that the academic libraries lacked LGBTQ titles for many different reasons such as lack of need, limited budgets, unfamiliarity with this emerging literature, and limited time to devote to collection development. The authors hope that the study will prompt librarians to assess their collections to be more inclusive. Some of the   recommendations made by the authors specified that librarians include questions in their surveys about the needs of LGBTQ titles, updating collection procedures to consider LGBTQ themed titles and assess whether local collections provide adequate access to LGBTQ themed youth literature for curriculum support.

This study is very extensive and important. Academic libraries support the development of teacher and librarian programs therefore having access to LGBTQ titles to evaluate and familiarize with is vital to their education.

The Power of a Leisure Reading Collection in Academic Libraries

Rodriguez, Olivia
Susan Hurst, Dominic Marsh, Dean Brown & Shona Forbes (2017) Cats, Comics, and

Knausgård: Promoting Student Reading at a U.K. Academic Library with a Leisure

Reading Collection, New Review of Academic Librarianship, 23:4, 442-452, DOI:

10.1080/13614533.2017.1371612.
Summary: This article looked at promoting student reading in an academic library by creating a section for leisure reading with a display and newly acquired high-interest books. Concerns for creating this collection addressed budget and staff issues. Fortunately, “staff felt collections benefited their users by offering a means of relaxation and stress relief and saw them as a way to encourage patrons into the library and introduce them to new ideas” (2017, Hurst et. al., p. 442). Book selection was also critical to creating a well-used collection; decisions were made to purchase relatively new books, published in 2016, but also popular series books were also added to the list as well. Book selection was also influenced by a student survey both in print and online in order which produced additional student buy-in. After 2 months of studying the use of the new leisure reading collection, the authors found that out of the 578 books in the collection, 352 were circulated. In addition the article referenced the study by Bosman that found that “the promotion of reading for pleasure could change student perceptions of the library” (2017, Hurst et. al., p. 451). If students are reading high interest books, this can only help the overall use of any library.
Evaluation: This article discussed the well-researched idea that leisure reading provides an escape for stressed students and offers them a “break” from academia. It also addressed the effect leisure reading has on individual reading comprehension reading skills and I really enjoyed reading this article. Since universities are in the business of research and knowledge, I think sometimes students are overwhelmed and stressed and I loved that this university decided to offer students a reprieve from their day to day life of studying, working, and analyzing.

Preparing for renovation: Estimating shelf occupancy to inform decision making regarding the redevelopment of library space.

1. Chieng, Tracey

2. Weare, W. H., Jr., Moffett, P., & Cooper, J. P. (2016). Preparing for renovation: Estimating shelf occupancy to inform decision making regarding the redevelopment of library space. Collection Management, 41(3), 168-181. 

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01462679.2016.1212755

3. Summary: The University Library at Indiana-Purdue University Indianapolis prepared for renovation by having the Access Serices Team estimate shelf occupancy. Renovation of library spaces have been motivated by three main factors: the shift from print to digital access, needs and expectations of the library of students have changed, and shortage of campus space means more campus units are now housed in the libraries. As a result of that, spaces that hold titles that are rarely used or materials that are available online can be better used. The Access Services Team used a systematic random sampling method to estimate current free space on shelves and how much space would become available after weeding materials. They found that over 30% of current shelf space si empty and over 25% is occupied by journals that are available electronically. The authors posit that this general estimate can apply across many university libraries.

4. Evaluation: The article begins with the authors saying they believe these estimations found can be applied across many university libraries. While their findings are interesting, I do not think the numbers can be used for other libraries. They used a rather simple sampling method and collections can differ quite a bit across different universities. However, I do believe it is useful to estimate how much free space there is in the stacks in preparation for repurposing a space.