Decentering Whiteness in Libraries - (Beta Phi Mu Scholars) by Andrea Jamison (Paperback)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

The book serves as a "how to" guide for evaluating and crafting collection development policies that will help create equity in library collections. The book not only helps contextualize the need for inclusive collection development policies but features user-friendly tables, guides, and sample policies.

Review Quotes

Andrea Jamison's book will be very useful, not only to children and young adults librarians, her primary audience, but to all collection development librarians who struggle with creating good, diverse policies, and sometimes with getting them approved.

Jamison is 2023-24 chair of ALA's Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable, and though she intends this volume for those working with children's or young adult collections, her book is applicable to all library types. In part 1 Jamison reviews the background of diversity inequities in libraries and the need for inclusive policies. In part 2, she presents her Jamison Measure of Diversity (J-MOD), which she created to analyze how diversity is manifested in collection development policy statements. Jamison provides step-by-step instructions for using the J-MOD, shows how it can be used to identify the policy type, and offers suggestions for "increasing diversity language within policies in terms of both presence and frequency" (p. 94). The volume includes a chapter on writing inclusive policies. All chapters provide objectives, definitions of key terms, reflection questions, and references. Tables and charts integrated throughout the text enhance its readability. Recommended. Graduate students, professionals.

Jamison offers a practical yet heartfelt guide to understanding diversity inequities in libraries and assessing, clarifying, and reworking collection development policies. The book is divided into two main sections. Part one provides background on the Library Bill of Rights and outlines the importance of inclusive collection development policies. Part two gives librarians tools, notably the Jamison Measure of Diversity (J-MOD) tool, to assist with assessing current policies and targeting areas that need improvement. Jamison digs into best practices for writing inclusive policies, including an outstanding, sample-rich discussion of concrete recommendations for reframing, providing context, creating specificity, and connecting policies to the Library Bill of Rights. Tables, lists of recommended resources, clearly defined objectives, lists of major concepts, and discussion questions round out the book, making this a resource that librarians can revisit as they develop their collection development strategies and policies. Though it's geared toward youth services librarians, librarians at every level will find this a user-friendly and galvanizing guide to building balanced, inclusive collections that reflect the wide range of cultures, ethnicities, races, genders, and experiences within their communities.

The strength of this work is the relatively simple but meaningful approach outlined in the author's process. For busy librarians, especially in public and school libraries, I believe this would be a welcome guide to evaluating, writing, and actualizing collection development policy.

There is much to be learned from this short book about the history of racism, segregation, and inequality in U.S. libraries and the library profession. Jamison's overall focus on how to approach identifying, evaluating, and maintaining a diverse library collection is invaluable. She accentuates something that may seem obvious, yet may not be found in many library collection development policies: addressing the ambiguities of diversity. Jamison suggests being specific about what cultures and groups will be represented in the collection and always emphasizing that this fits into the mission of the organization for which the policy is written... I recommend Decentering Whiteness in Libraries for all libraries. It offers a clear and standardized way for library staff to build a diverse collection.

About the Author

Andrea Jamison is assistant professor of school librarianship at Illinois State University. She has more than 17 years of experience working in schools and libraries. She speaks internationally on issues related to creating inclusive learning spaces for youth and the interplay of race, power, and privilege in children's books. Her current research involves examining equity issues in library services and the role that libraries play in either perpetuating or mitigating systems of inequity. Andrea Jamison's recent dissertation, "The Train the Never Left the Station: Ananalysis of how the collection development policies of academic libraries address diversity," utilized a content analysis in order to assess manifest messages of diversity in policies. Through this study, Andrea Jamison identified six types of collection development policies utilized in some libraries and was able to develop a checklist for assessing diversity in policies.
Professor Jamison received her Master of Teaching from Concordia University and both her Master of Library Science degree and PhD in Information Studies from Dominican University School of Library and Information Science in River Forest, Illinois. Professor Jamison is actively involved with the American Library Association (ALA). In 2018, she chaired the working group responsible for updating ALA's Interpretation of the Bill of Rights for Diverse Library Collection. In 2020, she published an article in Knowledge Quest on information freedom and its implication for supporting diverse communities. Currently, she serves as chair for ALA's Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable which promotes multiculturalism in library services.