Diversifying Collections
Desiree Thomas
Stories are powerful. The stories we tell ourselves and each other have the power to create community and can help us understand each other and our world better. This can only happen if everyone within our community sees themselves in the stories we share. Now more than ever it is important for our children to see themselves in the books they read and to also see other people in their community reflected in an honest light. Efforts to decolonize library collections begins with amplifying the voices of authors from BIPOC communities. Increasing the number of diverse books in collections, reading those books, and promoting these titles with patrons are all a part of decolonizing a collection. A diverse collection is vitally important to the young people librarians serve every day. Our collections can either highlight their importance, or discredit their existence. Libraries, publishers, and authors all play an important role in producing and promoting diverse content.
Because children will shape the trajectory of our society, this article will focus on diversifying children’s and young adult collections. Our next generation will imbibe the stories we share with them. These stories will provide the scaffolding that children will use to help frame their ideas about community and diversity. If the goal is a more inclusive worldview through storytelling, then this process needs to start early as learning about race begins at an early age.
Thus a child's brain is busily creating new neural pathways that will lay the foundations for them to learn how to speak the languages they hear and mimic the actions they see as they learn about the world. They are also learning about the structural racism embedded within the fabric of our country. Research conducted by Phyllis Katz a clinical and developmental psychologist indicates that babies as young as 6 months stare longer at a face from a racial group different than their own and by age 5, children see race as a major point of difference or distinction, even when it is not discussed. (Phyllis Katz, 2000-2010).
This means children are already making their own assumptions about race and where they fit into our culture before adults are ready to start having conversations about race. Fellow library worker and brilliant poet Scott Woods sums up a child’s introduction to the concept of racial bias perfectly by stating, “So, while I agree with people who say no one is born a racist, it remains a powerful system that we’re immediately born into. It’s like being born into air: you take it in as soon as you breathe.” (2014)
An unwillingness to discuss race with children leads to them making assumptions about race. Research on family habits indicates that parents of color are three times more likely to discuss race with their children than white parents. The majority of white families never or almost never talk about race at home. (Brown, Tony N., Emily E. Tanner-Smith, Chase L. Lesane-Brown, and Michael E. Ezell, 2007). Conversations about race are crucial to a child's development because they help shape the way a child sees and quantifies differences. Having a predominantly white community only further highlights the need for diverse reads. Groups who have little interaction with people of color may have assumptions about people based on the way media outlets portray them. Providing diverse reads are one way of giving people in the white community the opportunity to interact with the stories of other cultures. Even slightly more exposure to other racial groups, even through children’s books, helps to counteract bias and discrimination (Crisp & Turner, 2009) (Krista Aronson, 2014). Librarians are not teachers or responsible for parenting the children that come into their libraries. However, library workers can help kids connect with books that help them feel seen and valued.
Librarians can only connect children to diverse books if those books reside in their collections. Until recently, finding culturally diverse books for young people was challenging. The publishing industry has been slowly increasing the amount of diverse content they offer. The Cooperative Children’s Book Center annually examines the catalogs of the major publishing houses for diversity. In 2018 3,134 books were reviewed by the CCBC. Literature mirrors are books that reflect the experience of the reader. Literature windows are stories that children from other cultures can read to learn about their neighbors. The CCBC’s analysis in 2019 shows that publications of diverse titles increased slightly. The publishing industry has been slow in providing books that operate as mirrors or windows for the majority of our community members.
Finding diverse books for your collection written by authors with that lived experience was even harder. A lot of the diverse picture books, readers, and chapter books written for children are being created by white authors. While the number of authors writing about their lived experiences has increased in recent years, authors writing outside the scope of their experience has become normalized. Titles like Ada Twist: Scientist, Katie Woo, and Pass the Ball Mo, are all examples of white authors writing outside of their lived experience. This is problematic in several ways. White authors who create diverse content already have established relationships with publishers. These relationships help their titles get published, purchased, and promoted. In this instance, white authors are also occupying a space that BIPOC authors have long been trying to gain entry to. Libraries looking for diverse content are sometimes unaware that the titles they choose may not provide the diverse voice they were seeking. Librarians and their material selectors can examine the catalogs of smaller publishing houses for diverse content.
A diverse collection takes careful consideration and planning. Decolonizing a collection isn’t about the exclusion of authors. It’s about providing a space where all patrons can find examples of diverse voices from their community. In “Moving the Center: the Struggle for Cultural Freedom”, Dr. Ngugi Wa Thiong’o provides a framework for inclusivity, stating that we “need to move the center from its assumed location in the West to a multiplicity of spheres in all the cultures of the world” and “move the center from all minority class via free access establishments within nations to the real creative centers among the working people in conditions of gender, racial and religious equality. “(p. XIV).
Libraries can and should examine the work of organizations like Learning for Justice, The Conscious Kid, and Lee and Low books for ideas on creating a diverse collection and evaluating their current collection. The ways a diverse collection is promoted and marketed in this era of racial history erasure is also of heightened importance. Sharing your new collection through reader’s advisory experiences, book lists, book talks, and book bundles can provide readers with an expanded universe of diverse authors to choose from. Patrons often direct their children towards books they loved when they were a child. These “comfort reads” hold a special place in the reader’s heart and often feature concepts from bygone eras. Librarian can introduce patrons to new authors while supplying them with classic comfort reads. Librarians can create a list of resources that can be used to create their own voice booklist, displays, or programs and consider partnering with outside agencies to extend library outreach efforts. Most schools will continue to teach the classics. The library can help teachers and students connect with those texts by offering up more diverse titles that align with the classics.
The young people who participate in library story times, spend time browsing your collection, and generally love being in the library are looking to librarians for guidance. Providing diverse reads gives the communities that we serve the opportunity to encounter stories that mimic their own lives and explore stories with different perspectives. A diverse collection communicates the belief that every story is important and we should work hard to learn about each other.