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DEI Toolkit

New York State Office of Cultural Education

Collection Development

Collections and collecting are the ties that bind the organizational audience for this toolkit. Museums, libraries, archives, historical and genealogical societies, and cultural heritage sites all rely on material culture, art, artifacts, specimens, and primary and secondary documents to fulfill their purpose. Our work as practitioners in the field relies on access to these objects and documents so we can make sense of the histories that came before us as well as the world around us. We use the collections at these sites for both leisure and learning.

When we consider diversity, equity, inclusion, accessibility, antiracism, and justice (DEI) in the context of our collections, our experiences as practitioners are as varied as our collections themselves. Since collections are developed by people with their own life experiences, likes and dislikes, and biases and prejudices, it is important that we acknowledge that the collections we, as practitioners, steward are shaped by our personal experiences and perspectives. We can develop practices that help to minimize the impact of our personal experiences and perspectives in favor of a broader range of viewpoints.

This section recommends two interrelated pathways to understanding our collections through a DEI lens: audits and evaluations, and policy and practice review and revision.

Audits and evaluations

DEI requires that we look at both the entire body of our collections, and individual categories or items with a critical eye. Our collections must work to tell as complete a story of our many histories as possible, prepare for future New Yorkers to add meaningful objects and documents to the collection, and when possible, address harm that may have been caused by our organizations and our collections.

In our most basic reckonings with our collections, we must ask:

  • Why do we hold this collection? What is its purpose? How did it get here?
  • What do we actively collect and why? What do we passively collect and why?
  • How do we use these collections? What is our goal for these collections?
  • How does the public access what we collect?
  • How relevant is our current collection to the people who work and live in this community, and visit our organization today?
  • Who is represented in our collection? Who is missing from it?
  • What is the scope of our collection? Who is making those decisions? How do they make those decisions?

Evaluating our collections and collecting practices in a critical way allows us to better and more fully understand how our collections were shaped by our predecessors, how they do or do not tell the many histories that make up the New York experience, and prepare our organizations for future New Yorkers.

Examples of Collections Policy and Statement Language including DEI

Example 1: Academic Library

In order to successfully fulfill our service and stewardship mission, those who are charged with developing collections employ strategies for acquiring, describing, and managing resources that go beyond normative structures, collections types, and established canons. Our decisions are informed by new curricula developed to meet the needs of a more diverse student body, new and emerging areas of research being conducted by a broad spectrum of researchers, including graduate students and newly- hired faculty, as well as by perspectives from the diminished or entirely lost voices of historically oppressed, marginalized, and under-served populations and communities.

Source: City Colleges of Chicago: College Libraries. (2020). Wilbur Wright College Library Collection Development. Retrieved from: https://researchguides.ccc.edu/collectionpolicy

Example 2: Community Library

Cleveland Public Library embraces and supports the diversity of our workforce as well as our community to include differences in race, ethnicity, language, culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, socioeconomic status, military status, physical or mental ability or disability.

The Library demonstrates its support by:

  • Engaging the board, leadership, and staff in ongoing inclusion training, education, and professional development;
  • Creating a safe workplace environment in which employees’ voices can be included, heard, valued, and treated with respect;
  • Developing and implementing programs and services that incorporate the differences that make us a community, ensuring fair and equitable treatment with access to appropriate resources and opportunities; and
  • Developing a supplier diversity program that mirrors the patrons we serve.

Source: Cleveland Public Library. (2021). Collection Development Policy: Policy on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion. Retrieved from: https://cpl.org/wp- content/uploads/board/collection-development-policy-final.pdf

Example 3: Museum

For too long museums have been elite institutions not everyone felt welcomed to visit and enjoy. We aim to shift that paradigm. The Phillips Collection is committed to ensuring that all members of our community feel seen and valued in everything we do. DEAI values guide us in sustaining our dynamic museum environment—comprised of staff, the board of trustees, supporters, volunteers, audiences, collections, exhibitions, programming, and internal operations. We unlock diversity’s power and beauty by intentionally fostering an inclusive, accessible museum fashioned upon a foundation of equity. Only by promoting and living out these values can the Phillips truly democratize belonging in our museum and set an example for our field.

Source: The Phillips Collection. (2023). Diversity, Equity, Accessibility and Inclusion. Retrieved from: https://www.phillipscollection.org/about/diversity

Example 4: Library and Archive

The Margaret Herrick Library is committed to providing a balanced collection that reflects global awareness and prioritizes the experience of traditionally underrepresented or marginalized people while advancing the understanding, celebration, preservation, and study of movies through its holdings. The Library’s collection development policy is an extension of the Academy’s A2020 and Aperture 2025 initiatives which seek to support inclusion and increase representation within the Academy and the greater film community. Library staff have a professional responsibility to be inclusive in their collection development decisions. Therefore, the Library’s collection development policy does not allow for exclusion of materials or resources because they are deemed offensive by some. Access to all materials and resources is assured to Library users.

Retrieved from: https://www.oscars.org/sites/oscars/files/mhl_collection_policy_updated_2022-07-21.pdf

Policy Review and Revision

Understanding our collections through a DEI lens requires us to create, implement, and revise policies that serve the needs of our current communities and tell the most robust histories of our communities and organizations.

Consider the following policy review and revision guidance:

  • More than one person makes the decision- consider restructuring who participates in collection development decisions. This may mean sharing or ceding some authority.
  • Input from directly impacted people is essential.
  • If you do not have one, create a collection development committee and include staff, community, and board members.
  • If you cede authority for collection development to the staff, consider recording and posing decisions at those meetings on your website or in another easy-to- access location.
  • Make decision processes transparent- it is easy for the served population to know how items are added and removed from the collection.
  • Policies and procedures for accessing the collection are fair, equitable, and easy to understand.
  • The scope of your organization’s collection takes into account the fullest practical definition and acknowledges the long history of human impact. This may mean changing the temporal scope of your collection from “founding of Municipality” to “history of the area now known as Municipality.”
  • Increasing the frequency of policy documents review to proactively respond to demographic changes in your served population. Example, review a policy every 3 years, rather than every 10 years.
  • As your organization’s mission and collecting scope change, continually refine the existing collection to meet the mandate of the new mission and scope (weed and deaccession).

Inclusive Description and Cataloguing

Language, including the way we talk about historical materials conveys values.  The language we use to talk about our collections can elevate our ability to understand our communities or sometimes it can alienate and marginalize members of our communities.   Individuals responsible for managing historic records must aim to describe those records in an accurate and respectful manner for all who use and are represented in the collections especially those featuring Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other marginalized groups. However, despite good intentions, this goal has not always been in the forefront of the profession. This is a problem for several reasons:  

  • Certain language used to describe marginalized communities can garner a negative connotation over time and its continued usage dehumanizes members of those communities. 

  • Descriptions that minimize or omit marginalized groups from the narrative paint a one-sided, distorted view of the historical record.  

  • Using outdated, antiquated terms and subject headings may inhibit the discovery of relevant records by the communities depicted in them, as well as other researchers.  

  • Harmful and oppressive language can alienate marginalized groups, who will feel unwelcome at the institution, and stakeholders, who may view an institution as being inconsiderate to those represented in its archival collections. 

Neutrality does not exist in archival description. “Archivists inevitably inject their own values, experiences, and educations, and reflect those of various external pressures, into all such research and decision-making.” [Terry Cook, “Evidence, Memory, Identity, and Community: Four Shifting Archival Paradigms” Archival Science10 (2013): 102].  Attempts to be neutral and objective often reinforce previously established hierarchal structures and narratives in which whiteness is centered and serves as the norm.  Aim instead to describe resources in a respectful manner that emphasizes humanity before identity and neither distorts nor overlooks members of marginalized communities.  

When describing historical materials be aware of: 

  • Preferred language used by the community or people documented in the materials
  • Person First vs Identity First descriptors (students who are blind vs blind students)
  • Language that glorifies and individual or group
  • Creator supplied language vs archivist/librarian supplied language. 

Inclusive description aims to build sustainable partnerships based on trust and reciprocity with the communities of New York State to provide equitable access to their historic records and improve our understanding of history. To accomplish this, we must embrace an increased level of transparency about archival descriptive practices.   While a growing body of research on inclusive language exists to guide the daily work of your staff and volunteers, we must create opportunities for the people and communities we describe to have input into decisions about the language used to describe their experiences and history.

Sources and Standards

Academia. Metadata Standards Across Libraries, Museums and Archives. Retrieved from: https://www.academia.edu/4044460/Metadata_Standards_Across_Libraries_Archives_and_Museums

Education and Research Archive. (2021). Metadata Frameworks Driven by Indigenous Communities in Canada's North: An Exploration. Retrieved from: https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/73ddd5bf-ad06-4217-86f5-fe48ca7bd224

Empire State Library Network. RDA Toolkit. Retrieved from: https://www.esln.org/resources/rda-toolkit/

First Monday. Metadata for All: Descriptive Standards and Metadata Sharing Across Libraries, Archives and Museums. Retrieved from: https://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/1628/1543

Homosaurus. Retrieved from: https://homosaurus.org/

Lellman, Charlotte, et al. "Guidelines for Inclusive and Conscientious Description." Center for the History of Medicine: Policies and Procedures Manual (May 2020). Center for the History of Medicine, Francis A. Countway Library of Medicine, Boston, Mass. https://wiki.harvard.edu/confluence/display/hmschommanual/Guidelines+for+Incl usive+and+Conscientious+Description.

NC State University Libraries. Ethics in Archives: Diversity, Inclusion and the Archival Record. Retrieved from: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/news/special-collections/ethics-in- archives%3A-diversity-inclusion-and-the-archival-record

Society of American Archivists. Description Section. Retrieved from: https://www2.archivists.org/groups/description-section

South Central Regional Library Council. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Justice, and Accessibility (DEIJA): Inclusive Metadata Practices for Digital Collections. Retrieved from: https://scrlc.libguides.com/deij/metadata

SSDN Metadata Working Group. (2020). Inclusive Metadata & Conscious Editing Resources. Retrieved from: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1APavAd1p1f9y1vBUudQIuIsYnq56ypzNYJYgDA9 RNbU/edit?usp=sharing

University of Washington. (2019). Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion: Glossary of Terms. Retrieved from: https://epi.washington.edu/sites/default/files/website_documents/DEI%20Glossary_For matted_20190711.pdf