Weighed and Measured: Making Way for a Diverse Children’s Collection in a Research University Library during a Reorganization

Abstract

In 2021, librarians at Colorado State University Libraries seized the opportunity to serve the university community’s educational and personal needs through the creation of a sub-collection of children’s books. Through the curation of awards and notable book lists for children’s books, the collection was born out of a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion, and social justice principles. After a review of the literature, this article outlines how the authors identified award-winning and notable titles to launch the collection, saved the collection in the middle of a reorganization, assessed the diversity of the new collection, and ensured the collection’s continual development as a vital resource for the university community moving forward. This article provides a starting point for academic librarians looking to ground a new or existing children’s collection in diversity and inclusion principles, even when lacking devoted personnel, extensive monetary support, or building space for the collection.

Keywords:

• Academic libraries
• children’s collection
• collection development
• collection assessment
• diversity
• inclusion

Acknowledgements

The Libraries’ children’s collection would not exist without Khaleedah Thomas’s leadership in diversifying the main collection and her management of a grant from the Colorado Department of Education.

Colorado State University acknowledges, with respect, that the land we are on today is the traditional and ancestral homelands of the Arapaho, Cheyenne, and Ute Nations and peoples.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).