Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your introduction!
Great question about being involved at your campus with larger EDI initiatives.
I am curious to know if there's a central EDI office that provides guidance to all departments at Sierra College? It might be worth contacting that office (if it exists) or the folx who are responsible for leading EDI districtwide, and see where there opportunities for them to support your efforts beyond collections--are the opportunities to learn about inclusive and equitable hiring to diversify your staff? are there opportunities to connect with student services/student clubs that have reach to undereprepresented students?
You also mention that you are at a satellite campus--are there opportunities to partner with the main library around these efforts at the main campus? Also, going beyond your district, you might want to see what resources are available to you from the statewide Council of Chief Librarians (of California community colleges. That network is good to connect with--I was formerly at director of a community college library in California and learned of their system wide efforts to support DEI at community college libraries across the state.
Best,
Brian
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Brian Lym
Director for Employee Engagement, Development, and Belonging
University of Oregon Libraries
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Brian Lym
Director for Empioyee Engagement, Development, and Belonging
University of Oregon LIbraries
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Original Message:
Sent: Apr 03, 2024 05:12 PM
From: Lisa Nowlain
Subject: Welcome! Please introduce yourself, say a little bit about your library's EDI activities (or lack thereof), and what you hope to get from joining this discussion group
Hello!
My name is Lisa Nowlain and I'm a librarian at the Nevada County campus of Sierra College in the California foothills. I was part-time for a while and am now in my first full-time academic librarian role in a community college. Previously I was a youth librarian at public libraries.
I'm still figuring out the landscape here - as a "non-instructional" faculty at a satellite campus, there's a lot to navigate and understand how I can be involved in EDI projects on the small scale and larger scale. Since starting here in August, we've updated our collection development policy to include EDI language, and I've done some deep weeding of our collection (eep!), but am looking for more transformative ways to be involved in EDI on campus and in my community from my role as a librarian. I felt a lot more clear on how it looked as a public librarian!
Glad to be here!
Lisa
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Lisa Nowlain
Librarian
Sierra College
Original Message:
Sent: Apr 03, 2024 01:32 PM
From: Corliss Lee
Subject: Welcome! Please introduce yourself, say a little bit about your library's EDI activities (or lack thereof), and what you hope to get from joining this discussion group
Hi, everyone! I'm Corliss Lee, co-convenor of this Discussion Group. I am the American Cultures librarian at UC Berkeley and also the Doe Library liaison to the Ethnic studies, College Writing, American Studies and Legal Studies departments. My co-convenor, Brian Lym, and I co-edited a book, Implementing Excellence in Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, published by ACRL in 2022. That experience reinforced for us that EDI work requires continuing education and growth; this work is never "done." In talking to other librarians we realized that there was a need for a forum for discussion and community building - hence this discussion group.
Librarians and staff at my library have undertaken a variety of EDI related projects over the years, and the Librarians association has had a Diversity committee for over 20 years, but there was no library-wide committee until the Task Force on Racial Justice was formed in 2020. One of the recommendations of the Task Force was the formation of a standing committee, the Library Equity and Inclusion Commitee, which began its work in April 2022; I'm currently the past chair.
Looking forward to learning from the folks in this community!
Corliss
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Corliss Lee
American Cultures Librarian
University of California - Berkeley
She/Her/Hers
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