Project READY: Free, asynchronous curriculum about equity and access for diverse youth

Project READY: Reimagining Equity & Access for Diverse Youth–A Free Online Professional Development Curriculum

Project READY was created by the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Sciences and a team of educators, library staff, and youth. In the about page on the website, the Project READY staff explain their goals and the purpose of this curriculum:

“…it is not solely the responsibility or burden of communities of color or Indigenous communities to call attention to the issues of systemic racism, oppression, and inequity and to do the work of addressing them.”
“…this curriculum will contribute to the growing body of social justice-oriented thought and practice in the fields of library science and education.”
“…most importantly, [they] hope it will help library staff develop responsive and equitable library programs with youth of color and Indigenous youth.”

Work through the 27 modules at your own pace. They are designed to be worked through sequentially. If you have already done a lot of equity and inclusion work specifically related to race and racism, you may want to skim or skip some of the foundational modules.

Some of the modules are:

Module 6: Indigeneity and Colonialism
Module 8: Cultural Competence & Cultural Humility
Module 10: Unpacking Whiteness
Module 11: Confronting Colorblindness and Neutrality
Module 13: Allies & Antiracism
Module 15: (In)Equity in Libraries
Module 17: Culturally Sustaining Pedagogy
Module 20: Talking About Race with Youth
Module 21: Assessing Your Current Practice
Module 24: Transforming Library Collections

Project READY was created by the University of North Carolina–Chapel Hill’s School of Information and Library Sciences and supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services, Wake County Public School System, and North Carolina Central University.

Diversity in Children’s Books 2018 Infographic

The Cooperative Children’s Book Center has updated their Diversity in Children’s Books infographic to reflect books published in 2018. I highly recommend taking 5 minutes to read Picture This: Diversity in Children’s Books 2018 Infographic by Sarah Park Dahlen and David Huyck.

In the article, you will find links to the graphic in PDF and JPG format, and different sizes. They also include the full citation you should use when using the graphic.

The article include a link to their 2015 version of the graphic; which is very interesting! The percentage of books depicting white characters decreased from 73.3% in 2015 to 50% in 2018. The biggest increase by far… Animals/Other increased from 12.5% in 2015 to 27% in 2018 while books depicting American Indians/First Nations characters increased from 0.9% in 2015 to 1% in 2018. Sadly, we’re still missing the mark!

DiversityInChildrensBooks2018

Huyck, David and Sarah Park Dahlen. (2019 June 19). Diversity in Children’s Books 2018. sarahpark.com blog. Created in consultation with Edith Campbell, Molly Beth Griffin, K. T. Horning, Debbie Reese, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, and Madeline Tyner, with statistics compiled by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison: http://ccbc.education.wisc.edu/books/pcstats.asp. Retrieved from https://readingspark.wordpress.com/2019/06/19/picture-this-diversity-in-childrens-books-2018-infographic/.

Diversity Audits

Does this sound familiar: I want to do a diversity audit, I know I need to do one, but I…

Don’t have time
Don’t know where to start
Am overwhelmed by the thousands and thousands of materials in my YA collection
Identify with most of the dominate identities/cultures and I don’t know everything I should, I’ll miss things and make mistakes

If this sounds familiar, take 10-15 minutes to read Measuring Diversity in the Collection by Annabelle Mortensen. I just did and learned…

1. Start small: Identify one or two small, but high profile areas and just audit those materials. For example, only audit the books used in teen book club and videos used in teen movie nights last year.

2. Set a time limit: If the identity of the characters and authors isn’t clear, set a time limit for researching that information. The library featured in “Measuring Diversity in the Collection” set a time limit of 7-8 minutes. If they didn’t find the information they needed in 7-8 minutes, they marked the item as “unknown.”

3. Don’t recreate the wheel: Use the same tracking categories as the Cooperative Children’s Book Center, Measuring Diversity in the Collection (which is adapted from CCBC), or this School Library Journal blog post.

4. Use an easier tool: Create and add data via a Google Form rather than creating and working in a spreadsheet.

5. Embrace discomfort: “It’s awkward and a bit unsettling to be actively looking for details on someone’s race or gender, not to mention that the entire exercise was naturally subjective, susceptible to user bias and errors… Nonetheless, we reasoned that a flawed audit would still be better than no audit at all.”

6. Set diversity goals: After you view the results of your diversity audit, set a few goals. “Each library will have different criteria for its diversity goals, whether they are tied to local demographics, strategic initiatives, or other considerations.” Measuring Diversity in the Collection has a few ideas about what your library can do to accomplish its goals.

If you want more detailed information on diversity audits, you might read the Complete YA Collection Diversity Audit series by Karen Jensen on the School Library Journal Blog.

Working Towards More Ethical Behavior

Many of our libraries have diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives. I counted five sessions at the 2018 OLA Annual Conference that were related to the DEI work Oregon libraries are doing. We are at different places in our learning and growth around DEI. Wherever you are at in your DEI learning, I hope you will watch this video and think critically about the main points no matter how uncomfortable it may feel.

How to let go of being a “good” person—and become a better Person
Dolly Chugh at TED@BCG
October 2018

Here are a few things from the video I want to remember:

“Bounded rationality is the Nobel Prize-winning idea that the human mind has limited storage resources, limited processing power, and as a result, it relies on shortcuts to do a lot of its work.”
“At any given moment, 11 million pieces of information are coming into your mind. And only 40 of them are being processed consciously.”
When we make mistakes that threaten our attachment to being a good person, like mistakes that hurt other people or promote injustice despite our intentions, we explain them away rather than learning from them.
These types of mistakes make us fight for our good person identity. Whereas other types of mistakes, like in accounting or parenting, make us seek out help from others, training, and books and articles so we can learn from our mistakes and improve.
Most of the time no one calls us out on these kinds of mistakes. Most of the time no one challenges our good person identity. This means we don’t think much about the ethical implications of those mistakes and we spiral towards less and less ethical behavior.
When someone notices us make these kinds of mistakes and points it out or asks us about it, it feels like they are challenging our good person identity. In these cases we have to think about the implications of our mistake and we begin to spiral towards more and more ethical behavior.
“We have this definition of good person that’s either-or. Either you are a good person or you’re not. Either you have integrity or you don’t. Either you are a racist or a sexist or a homophobe or you’re not. And in this either-or definition, there’s no room to grow.”

Here are a few of the questions I am thinking about:

How can I practice finding my mistakes when people don’t call me out on them?
How am I going to work through the instinct to fight for my good person identity so my response doesn’t end there… so I can identify my mistake and start the work to learn from it?
How am I going to invite colleagues to call me out? If you notice a DEI mistake in this blog, please provide constructive feedback. We are at different places in our DEI learning and growth, and you may be ahead of me. If so, share some of your resources please!
How am I going to deal with the discomfort and embarrassment the next time someone calls out my mistakes so I can learn and improve?
What am I going to do next time I notice a colleague make a DEI mistake? If I address it, can I help them work through the instinct to fight for their good person identity and deal with the discomfort and embarrassment to foster learning instead of defensiveness?
Circling back to a previous post about being good enough, how do we library professionals support each other in being good-ish and good enough? How do we help each other through our mistakes, acknowledging that they have “real costs to real people,” in a way that fosters growth and improvement without feeding into the perfectionist tendencies many of us have? If we wait to implement DEI initiatives until we think we have the perfect plan, we will never do it and we’ve already waited too long to address institutional and historic racism in public libraries.

OYAN Review: Jason Reynolds Talks Like an Author

This post is an article from the Spring 2018 issue of the OYAN Review and has been edited slightly for publication on the blog. It was written by Kristy Kemper Hodge at the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library.

It was Saturday night of the OASL Fall Conference, and Jason Reynolds towered on stage. He regaled us with the story of how he went from an obstinate non-reader to the author powerhouse he is today. The story begins with a much younger Jason, who grew up in a neighborhood that was dangerous and full of perils like gangs, shootings, drugs, and death. Where young men walked on one side of the law or the other, dealing and gang-banging or keeping their heads down, going to school, and staying out of trouble. Jason was able to keep out of trouble, and focus on school, but he was no reader. Why read? Why bother when there were no books about people like him? Who looked like him, talked like him, walked like him, lived like him? Or about people like his friends, family, and the people in his neighborhood? What could books possibly offer?

Then came Queen Latifah. Continue reading →

Slides for OLA 2018 Sessions Now Available

Whether or not you were able to join us in Eugene for OLA, you can now view the slides for most presentations on Northwest Central. Of particular interest to OYAN members:

Mark your calendars: the 2019 OLA-WLA Conference will be held at the Hilton Vancouver in Vancouver, WA from April 17-20, 2019!

Diverse Voices in Teen Reads: A Book List

This booklist [pdf] comes from the Corvallis-Benton County Public Library and features books for teens that represent a diversity of lived experiences.

J NON-FICTION

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice by Phillip Hoose
An in-depth account of Claudette Colvin, an important yet largely unknown civil rights figure.

Dreaming in Indian: Contemporary Native American Voices
An anthology of art and writings from some of the most groundbreaking Native artists working in North America today.

The Port Chicago 50 by Steve Sheinkin
An account of the 1944 civil rights protest by hundreds of African-American Navy servicemen who refused to work in unsafe conditions.

Rhythm Ride: A Road Trip Through the Motown Sound by Andrea Davis Pinkney
A narrative history of the Motown music label.

Continue reading →

Combatting Hate via Your Library

YALSA has resources to help you support teens, especially those who may be feeling the brunt of current events. YALSA also has resources to help you promote empathy and understanding among teens. Check out these wiki pages:

Don’t forget that anyone can add content to these pages, so if you know of a good resource, please add it!

OYAN – Oregon Young Adult Network

diversity equity and inclusion