Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Anti-Racism, and Accessibility (DEIAA) Statement
The California Community Colleges (CCC) Library Services Platform (LSP) Governance Committee and the consortium of CCC LSP member institutions embrace diversity among students, staff, faculty, and the communities we serve. We are committed to intentionally creating and maintaining safe, equitable, inclusive, and anti-racist environments and actively challenging systems of oppression.
We acknowledge that our libraries are not neutral and may have served–sometimes inadvertently and other times intentionally–as instruments of exclusion, colonialism, and assimilation. We commit to implementing policies and taking concrete steps, large and small, to undo this harm and lead to systemic changes.
To that end, we pledge to:
1. Raise the visibility of the LSP Community’s commitment to ending racism, anti-Blackness, classism, ableism, and gender inequities while advocating for systemic change
2. Embed a DEI lens into all LSP Governance Committee and work group activities
3. Reduce the harm caused by policies and practices originating out of historical legacies of colonialism
4. Reimagine the LSP as a model of diversity, equity, and inclusion
5. Evaluate our progress, adjust our goals as needed, and recommit to our statement and pledge on an annual basis
1.1 Review, update, and share the LSP DEIAA value statement annually.
1.2 Present and promote LSP DEIAA initiatives and programs.
1.3 Translate and share the DEIAA value statement in multiple languages.
1.4 Explicitly invite California Community College students, staff, faculty and community members to engage with us in DEIAA work.
1.5 Promote, share, and learn from DEIAA work at other LSP libraries: collect, highlight, and feature.
2.1 Invite the Student Senate for California Community Colleges LSP Governance Committee representative to attend any work group meeting on a drop in or regular basis.
2.2 Continue to recruit more diverse members for LSP committees, work groups, and task forces.
2.3 Identify intentional DEIAA practices and share, model, and teach them to members of LSP committees, work groups, and task forces.
2.4 Incorporate intentional DEIAA practices in LSP committees, work groups, and task force activities.
2.5 Include DEIAA issues as standing agenda items for LSP committees, work groups, and task force meetings.
2.6 Develop LSP training that includes DEIAA perspectives and/or helps with the growth of underrepresented members.
2.7 Use the LSP LibGuide and other mechanisms to inform member libraries about local DEIAA initiatives and programs.
2.8 Prioritize DEIAA enhancements as part of the internal NERS enhancement voting process
3.1 Implement a process to identify and change or remove harmful, dehumanizing, or stigmatizing subject terms that appear in record details in OneSearch (Primo VE) and other locally controlled library platforms.
3.2 Use analytics to uncover inequities in program data on an annual basis: Identify analytics and data sources, review the data, report the inequities or successes discovered, and develop an action plan to address the inequities discovered Identify system wide analytics that we can agree upon – demonstrating use of the system by various groups – or help institutions understand how to collect this data.
3.3 Create opportunities for reference and instruction librarians to engage students and other library users in the process of identifying and changing potentially harmful terminology and practices.
3.4 Direct each LSP work group to review and update current policies and practices that may be exclusionary or harmful.
3.5 Work to influence SACO to eliminate harmful, dehumanizing, or stigmatizing subject terms and replace where appropriate with more inclusive language.
4.1 Monitor and assess accessibility of software platforms supported through the LSP program. Recommend methods of alternative access when needed and best practices for use of the software that support accessibility.
4.2 Identify participating LSP institutions with less capacity to implement LSP initiatives, and perform outreach, and provide additional targeted support as needed.
4.3 Increase and highlight collections and courses with OER and ZTC options OER and connection to CVC/OEI. Help students identify ZTC courses.
4.4 Find LSP program solutions or integrations to adapt to changing student needs (e.g., digital lockers, on- demand digitization, Alma Digital).
4.5 Adopt usability standards that make the LSP accessible to all. Usability improvements can help us reach out to various communities. Developing usability-optimized standards could help. Perhaps pay people to support smaller colleges who don’t have the staff to implement.
4.6 Establish physical resource sharing across the Network Zone, including funding of delivery for interlibrary loan items regionally and/or across the state of California.
4.7 Establish accessibility standards and best practices for use with Alma Digital.
4.8 Identify ways to connect the LSP program to the CCCs CVC/OEI and other OER or ZTC programs and initiatives with earmarked funding; Strategize collectively for ZTC grants via the LSP.
4.9 Increase and enhance access points to make resources by and for historically marginalized populations more discoverable.
5.1 Promote, share, and learn from other LSP libraries: collect and highlight CCC LSP libraries advancing DEIAA efforts.
5.2 Evaluate and assess LSP program DEIAA progress on an annual basis.
5.3 Adjust goals based on evaluations and assessments of DEIAA progress on an annual basis.
5.4 Update and recommit to the DEIAA Values Statement on an annual basis.
Revised May 5, 2024