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The conference in many ways embodied both the importance and the vagueness referred to above – it was absolutely packed (with apparently sixty more people on the waiting list) – with a diverse range of enthusiastic library professionals and academics, and the number of talks (see the full programme, abstracts and presentations here<\/a>) shows how much activity is going on and how much interest there is in this area. One of the conference organisers, Elizabeth Charles (Assistant Director of Library Services, Birkbeck, University of London), has recently published an excellent UKSG Insights Paper<\/a> on the pressing need for UK library and scholarly communications sectors to engage with the difficult work of decolonising curricula, which can be broadly defined as:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u2018creating spaces and resources for a dialogue among all members of the\nuniversity on how to imagine and envision all cultures and knowledge systems in\nthe curriculum, and with respect to what is being taught and how it frames the\nworld\u2019 <\/em>(Keele University, 2019<\/a>, cited in Charles, 2019).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n Academic libraries play an integral role in providing\n\u2018spaces and resources\u2019 and facilitating access to \u2018knowledge systems\u2019, and\nhence should not be exempt from participating in such dialogue. Indeed, the\nDecolonise Sussex student-led campaign extends its definition<\/a> of decolonisation\nbeyond the focus of \u2018the curriculum\u2019 to the very structures of the higher\neducation institution itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cDecolonisation\u201d has become a key concept in the Higher Education landscape<\/a>\nover the past few years, with a number institutional strategic initiatives\nemerging in responding to Student Union campaigns, while some argue that its\ngrowing popularity as a buzzword<\/a> risks glossing over crucial and painful complexities in its meaning<\/a>.\nMany of these knotty problems were discussed amongst conference delegates at\nGoldsmiths, during lively and constructive breakout groups throughout the day\n(read a record of some of these here<\/a>). Diversifying\ncollections and BAME inclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Highlights included learning about the University of\nHuddersfield\u2019s \u2018Broaden my Bookshelf<\/a>\u2019 project, which\nwas promoted and organised by newly-appointed student BAME ambassadors, who\nengaged in a reading list audit and a series of high-profile events in order to\naddress the vast disparity in awarding outcomes between white students (78% of\nwhom received 1st \/ 2:1 degrees), Asian students (66%) and Black students\n(55%). There is also a significant gap in academic attainment\nbetween students at Sussex<\/a>, where the BME gap is 14.3%, with the\nblack attainment gap is worryingly higher at 26%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Meanwhile at the University of Winchester, a Human Library<\/a> project involved\nvisitors ‘borrowing’ a Human Book for half an hour to ask direct questions\nabout their lived experience, especially in relation to societal bias and\nprejudice. As a side note, it was also interesting to contrast the level of\nfunding required for the different projects – Huddersfield had a whopping \u00a320k\nto spend on books, whereas Winchester\u2019s Human Library budget was just a few\nhundred pounds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several more talks described other laudable projects of this\nsort, often centring around Black History Month. While completely understandable,\nthis meant that there was not always a clear distinction between \u2018decolonisation\u2019\nand a wider diversity and inclusion agenda, with the potential danger that if\ninstitutions believe they can address student\/staff demands for decolonisation\nwith a once-a-year display of books by black authors (or changes to a couple of\nreading lists in already sympathetic departments), this may forestall more\nserious attempts to address deeper structural issues. It should be noted that\neveryone at the conference seemed to be aware of this issue, with concerns\naround \u2018tokenism\u2019 being cited in all discussion breakout groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decolonising\ncataloguing and classification<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Another theme that emerged concerned efforts to address\nissues of bias in classification systems. A great deal of work has already been\ndone on this in University of Cambridge library services (see here for the excellent website<\/a> they have\nproduced with resources on the subject), while a fascinating presentation from\nthe Scott Polar Institute highlighted their plans to revise Polar UDC\u2019s subject headings<\/a>\nso that (within the system they have), the catalogue does not reproduce\ncolonial terminology and classification structures, drawing on the broader\nexpertise and ideas from students and staff across the Institute. <\/p>\n\n\n\n This area in particular is of interest to us at Sussex,\nwhere the cataloguing team are already working on substituting offensive terms\n(e.g. \u2018illegal aliens\u2019) and where the BLDS Legacy Collection\nProject<\/a> is looking at applying metadata to a collection drawn\nprimarily from the Global South and which literally represents the structures\nof empire and colonialism. A recent launch event for this project highlighted a\nbig appetite amongst attendees for it to be a key opportunity for collaborative\ndecolonising work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Decolonising reading\nlists and pedagogy<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Kevin Wilson shared important insights gained from analysing\nLSE reading lists, using data gathered from Talis Aspire and Alma (headline:\neven those courses solely concerned with the histories of Latin America or\nAfrica are sourcing nearly all their books from the UK\/US). You can read more\nabout this project here<\/a>, which might provide a useful\ntemplate for providing an evidence-based argument to academics to support a\nchange of purchasing policy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n A favourite session for Alice was a workshop-based presentation on \u2018Creative Library Research<\/a>\u2019 from library and academic skills staff at University of the Arts London, which asked delegates to respond to abstract diagrams and quotes from Marcel Proust and Malcolm X as a way of opening a discussion about the curatedness of libraries, and critiquing systems of knowledge using critical reading and creative literacy skills. Another hugely engaging presentation on the pedagogy theme was led by Goldsmiths\u2019 own Sara Ewing (based in the Library\u2019s Academic Skills Centre), who used Linda Tuhiwai Smith<\/a>‘s work as a basis for a series of Decolonising Research Methods workshops<\/a>, showing students in disciplines as unlikely as law that there are biases, assumptions and unquestioned legitimacies inherent in the very foundations of the Western epistemological approach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Concluding thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n All in all we came away with a huge amount to think about,\nlots of new contacts and great resources, and a sense that if someone were to\nask us what \u2018decolonising the curriculum\u2019 meant we would probably say \u2018well,\nit\u2019s a complicated (but overdue) work in progress\u2026\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n If you would like to learn more about this complex but vital\ntopic, Alice has created a reading list here<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Alice Corble and Danny Millum A couple of weeks ago we attended the \u2018Decolonising the curriculum \u2013the Library\u2019s role\u2019 conference at Goldsmiths, at which Alice was speaking. Given that the University of Sussex Library is in the process of formulating its own approach to decolonisation, and that this is both an extremely important and … Continue reading Libraries and decolonisation: a conference report<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":332,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[151087,150885],"tags":[151088,151092,4161,150885,4484],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9fi5f-dz","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/332"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=841"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":850,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/841\/revisions\/850"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sussex.ac.uk\/libstaff\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nThe conference presentations can be grouped into three main areas as outlined\nbelow: projects pertaining to (i) diversifying collections and BAME inclusion\n(ii) decolonising cataloguing and classification and (iii) decolonising reading\nlists and pedagogy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n