Are you committed to building a truly representative library collection but unsure where to start? Many librarians and educators recognize the importance of diverse books and #ownvoices narratives but struggle to translate that understanding into actionable steps. This post offers A Practical Guide Series to conducting a diversity audit, even if you’re starting from scratch. This guide will walk you through the process, providing a framework to evaluate your collection and identify areas for growth.
Why Undertake a Diversity Audit?
Before diving into the “how-to,” let’s reinforce the “why.” A diversity audit is a crucial step in ensuring your collection reflects the diverse identities and experiences of your community. While intentions are good, unconscious biases can hinder collection development efforts. Concrete data is essential to understand the current state of your collection and drive informed decisions. This guide is built on the understanding that intentional diversification is paramount and data is required to evaluate diversity.
You might find it helpful to do some background reading on the We Need Diverse Books movement. A diversity audit is a critical step in building truly representative collections, because no matter how well we think we are doing at this, I promise that our unconscious biases are getting in our way, without us knowing. We may think we are building representative collections, but we need concrete data to be sure.
Step-by-Step: Your Practical Guide Series to a Diversity Audit
This practical guide series is based on a workflow of proven success:
1. Preparation: Weeding & Category Selection
Consider performing your diversity audit after weeding your collection. This reduces the number of titles you need to assess. Alternatively, you could audit before weeding to use the audit data to inform weeding decisions.
Next, decide which categories of diversity to assess. This could be as simple as author/character ethnicity and LGBTQIA+ representation, or more comprehensive.
Here are example categories for your practical guide series:
-
Author:
- White (or assumed white)
- Gender/Gender Identity
- Disabled
- Queer
-
Main Characters:
- Initial Identity Markers:
- Male, Female, White (or assumed white), Nonbinary/Trans, Black, Latinx, Indigenous, Pacific Islander, Asian (broken up by region of asia), Biracial or “BIPOC unspecified”
- Additional Identity Markers:
- Plus Size, LGBTQIA+, Immigrant, 1st Generation American, Physical Disability or Chronic Illness, Neurodiverse or Learning Disability, Non-Holocaust related Jewish, Holocaust related Jewish, Muslim, Homelessness, Adopted, #Ownvoices joy, Mental Health/Trauma, Addiction, Set Outside U.S.
- Initial Identity Markers:
The categories you select should align with your library’s goals and the demographics of your student body.
2. Data Collection: The Copy/Titles Report
Create a copy/titles report from your library system. This report should include:
- Barcode
- Title
- Author
- Sublocation (if your library is genrefied)
Run your report as an Excel spreadsheet to enable filtering and the addition of columns. Including sublocation (genre) allows you to analyze diversity within each genre. This can inform purchasing decisions to address specific gaps.
3. Spreadsheet Setup: Organize Your Data
Add columns to your spreadsheet for each diversity category you’ve chosen. This will serve as your audit record.
If auditing by genre, filter the spreadsheet to display only one genre at a time. Select the row showing your categories and then go up to the top of the spreadsheet to click the “sort & filter” button. All of the column headers will now show a white square with an arrow in it (seen above). You can click on the arrow for the sublocation column and then deselect “select all” and only select the genre you want to start with.
4. Research and Data Entry: Digging Deeper
Begin auditing each book, one by one. Note that I chose to only include representation for characters who are main POV characters. I did not note information for side characters. This is because I feel authors sometimes resort to token representation in their supporting cast instead of the main, center stage, character being a member of diverse communities and representation. I did not want side characters or tokenization to skew my results into looking more diverse than they are.
Use resources like Goodreads and Google to research author and character identities. Search for keywords such as “diverse,” “POC,” “LGBT,” “ownvoices,” and “disability.” If needed, search things like “book title + diversity rep“or “book title +lgbt” or “author name + diversity” or “author name + ethnicity/lgbt” and etc.
Record your findings in the spreadsheet by entering a “1” in the corresponding cell for each category. Remember that the purpose of an audit is not to perfectly account for every identity and representation present in your collection. You are not trying to create a perfect document that perfectly lists every aspect of every author and character. That is not the point of the audit, and that should not be your goal. You cannot do that, because people cannot be, and should not be, labeled so definitively.
Note that prior to 2016ish, it was pretty common for a character or authors identities to not be explicitly stated. This can make auditing older titles more complicated and imperfect than auditing newer titles. In the past (and even still this is a common issue) it has been typical for characters and authors to be “assumed white,” or “assumed straight,” or “assumed cis,” etc unless otherwise specified.
5. Reporting and Analysis: Visualizing the Data
Once you have audited your collection, compile, analyze, and report your findings. Convert your data into graphs and charts to visualize the representation (or lack thereof) in your collection. Graphs are also more successful for sharing on social media, in newsletters, PD sessions, etc.
In order to gather my numbers, I used the “sort & filter” function in excel again. I went through each column one at a time and filtered out the blank cells so that I could capture the number of “tallies” each column/category has. I then input those numbers into a free chart creator I found on google called meta-chart.com. Here are my initial charts:
These visuals provide a clear snapshot of your collection’s strengths and weaknesses.
6. Implementing Changes: Copy Categories in Destiny
If you want to add your data directly to the destiny records, there are a couple different ways to do that. Some people add the data right into the MARC records. I am still figuring that part out, and figuring out whether that is something I want to do.
I am definitely adding the data to my copy records via copy categories. I am doing this for a couple of reasons. Firstly, patrons can easily browse by copy category, so students looking for books with a specific type of diversity will easily be able to do so on the search page of destiny.
To create your copy categories go to the “catalog” page and select the “copy category tab.” Next, add each of your audit categories as a copy category.
Create a .txt file barcode list for each audit category. Do this by going through my excel sheet one column at a time. One by one I filter the spreadhseet by each audit category (column). Then I copy the barcode list and paste it into editpad.org and save it. Use barcode list .txt file to batch update Destiny records. Repeat this step for the barcode list for each column category!
Lessons Learned: Continuous Improvement
As you complete your diversity audit, you’ll likely identify areas for improvement. Reflect on the process and consider adjustments for future audits. Remember, decentralizing whiteness and decolonizing collections is an ongoing process, not a one-time event.
Embracing Diversity: A Call to Action
This practical guide series provides a framework for conducting a diversity audit and building a more inclusive library collection. By following these steps, you can gain valuable insights into your collection’s strengths and weaknesses and make informed decisions to better serve your diverse community.
