Atla Annual 2021 Online

It is a sad reality that racist bias is inherent in cataloging standards and collection development practices. Ibram X. Kendi states in his book "How to Be an Antiracist" that it’s not enough to be “not racist” and that the opposite of racism is antiracism. Whether innate racism in cataloging and collection development practices is intentional or not, Technical Service librarians can be intentional about combatting it. This panel will present three antiracist projects implemented to address racism in collection development and classification. Leslie Engelson will discuss an effort initiated by the music faculty to determine the representation of BIPOC in the music score collection at Waterfield Library. Brinna Michael will demonstrate how racist language is represented in the Library of Congress Classification schedule and discuss her efforts at Pitts Theology Library to update call numbers. Finally, Caitlin Soma will discuss a diversity audit of the books assigned on the course reserve at Candler School of Theology to identify potential collection gaps and to encourage faculty to develop curricula that include more diverse voices.