











































Taking Steps to Decolonize Library Collections, Policies, and Services


349

Taking Steps to Decolonize Library 
Collections, Policies, and Services
Caroline Fuchs, Professor and Dean of Libraries, St. John’s University
Heather F. Ball, Assistant Professor and Critical Pedagogy Librarian for Stu-
dent Success, St. John’s University

ABSTRACT Emergent issues relating to equity and inclusion have high-
lighted the systematic and structural inequities experienced by society, 
which trickles down to our institutions, deeply affecting researchers using 
library collections and services. While events have shined a light on the 
overt disparities among social, ethnic, racial groups and other marginal-
ized populations, they have also offered libraries an opportunity to make 
changes to their ethos and practices. This paper provides an overview of a 
multi-year approach implemented at an academic library to intentionally 
re-imagine its collections, policies, and services to decolonize the library 
with little or no extra expenditures. Steps taken and discussed will showcase 
some creative, practical, and manageable steps that all libraries can take 
to better promote social justice, and equity for all. By taking these simple 
steps relating to equity, diversity and inclusion, libraries can transform their 
practices and environments, resulting in a more transparent commitment 
to decolonize collections, services, and policies.

St. John’s University is a four-year doctoral degree granting Catho-
lic university in New York City whose mission brings together our 
various identities into one: a Catholic, Vincentian, metropolitan, and 
global university. On June 6, 2020, University’s Senior Leadership 

LIGHTNING ROUNDS



350  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

signed an Anti-Racism Statement (https://www.stjohns.edu/news-
media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-lead-
ership) making a commitment to becoming an anti-racist institution 
and, in turn, all units within the University were asked to develop 
action plans to move this commitment to fruition. The question for 
us was: what do we need to do to decolonize the University Libraries 
that was in keeping with this anti-racism commitment? 

Essentially, the answer is slowly, thoughtfully, intentionally, by 
honoring a variety of perspectives, and through identifying a strate-
gic pathway towards developing the fundamental steps for success. 
To move forward with this work, we followed four guiding tenets: de-
center whiteness; apply that critical lens to our collections, services, 
and resources; develop mechanisms to honor marginalized voices; 
and acknowledge and therefore remediate for systemic oppression.

To decolonize our libraries, we had to make a commitment to do 
the work — not just on paper, but in everything we do. To that effect, 
our first phase focused on the following changes and endeavors. 
To begin, we created the Libraries Joint Statement on Anti-Racism 
(https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-state-
ment-and-action-plan), signed by the University Libraries, the Ritten-
berg Law Library and the Kathryn and Shelby Collum Davis Library. 
Next, the University Libraries re-wrote our mission and vision state-
ments (https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-
and-vision) to reflect our commitment to anti-racism and inclusion. 
This new mission and vision would guide us in reviewing and re-
vising library policies. In 2020, the University Libraries established 
the Anti-Racism Task Force, which was comprised of library faculty, 
administrators, staff, and students. The task force was charged with 
developing a plan to continue the anti-racism work that had begun. 
Some of the accomplishments of the task force were the development 
of an inclusive-practices workbook, a library-wide inclusive practices 
scan, an assessment of the Libraries’ website for inclusion and acces-
sibility, and an ebook EDI assessment. This task force was also charged 
with creating training modules for all library employees focusing on 
anti-racism, and associated diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts, 
including definitions, challenges, and potential implementations 
within the Libraries. Several trainings were held each semester.

The Anti-Racism Task Force continued its work for two years. In 
the fall of 2022, the task force was replaced by the Libraries Inclusiv-
ity, Diversity, Equity and Anti-Racism Committee (LIDEA), a standing 
committee that reports directly to the Dean of Libraries.

https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision


LIGhTNING ROuNDS  351

As stated above, the first step that the Libraries took in furthering 
the University’s commitment to becoming an anti-racist institution 
was the development of a Joint Statement on Anti-Racism, which has 
been publicly posted on our websites since 2020. The statement reads: 

The University Libraries, the Rittenberg Law Library, and the Kathryn & 
Shelby Cullom Davis Library are united in opposition to systemic racism and 
racial violence. Pope Francis reminds us that “we cannot tolerate or turn 
a blind eye to racism and exclusion in any form.” Therefore, our libraries, 
in keeping with Catholic social justice teachings, must strive to affect the 
common good rather than claim a neutral stance. In support of St. John’s 
University community of students, researchers, and scholars, we stand 
together in commitment as allies in the intentional pursuit of anti-racist 
practices, policies, and collections.

Once we had adopted the Anti-Racism Statement, we revised our 
mission and vision to reflect our renewed commitment to decolonize 
the Libraries. These were likewise publicly posted on our website, 
and read as follows:

Mission: St. John’s University Libraries advance the teaching, learning, 
research, and scholarship of the University. We are committed to open, 
accessible, equitable and inclusive practices in instruction, services, col-
lections, and policies.

Vision: St. John’s University Libraries will be recognized as an essential 
academic partner in the teaching, research, and mission endeavors of the 
University. We will foster academic success by honoring the diverse voices 
of scholarship in our communities as a means of empowering our students 
and faculty to freely discover, create and share new knowledge.

From there, we began looking at our policies, starting with our 
collection development policy. In the end, we made the decision to 
replace the structured collection development policy (which focused 
on “what” we were collecting) with a new (and more fluid) collec-
tion development philosophy (which shifted the focus to “why” we 
collect). Our Collection Development Philosophy was also publicly 
posted on our website just below our revised mission and vision 
(https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-
vision). It states:

St. John’s University Libraries identifies, acquires, manages, and provides 
access to physical and digital resources to support current curricula needs, 
to promote scholarly research and inquiry, and to encourage critical prac-
tices that allow our community of users to create new knowledge that has 
the potential to be transformative in nature. The Libraries acknowledges 

https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision


352  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

the impact of the evolving information-seeking practices and firmly adheres 
to an ethos of free and open access to information, freedom of expression, 
and the need for our collections to reflect diversity and interculturality.

In building our collections, we recognize that Libraries are not neutral and 
as such our traditional collecting practices may have excluded the voices, 
experiences, and perspectives of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color 
(BIPOC) and other marginalized groups. With our continued commitment 
to be an anti-racist and inclusive institution, the Libraries is working toward 
a more just future for the St. John’s University community of scholars and 
researchers. To accomplish this, the Libraries will endeavor to:

• Approach collection development with cultural humility 
and remain open to what we do not know,

• Critically examine the “authority” of a work through the 
consideration of author identities, perspectives, and histori-
cal context in an effort to break down barriers produced by 
structural oppression and implicit/explicit biases,

• Prioritize collection choices to include intentional consider-
ation of historically marginalized authors and creators,

• Collect materials in a wide range of formats and media in 
recognition that there are many ways to learn and know,

• Build collections with an ethos of equity and accessibility, 
and with a commitment to open scholarship that honors 
scholarly activity,

• Establish healthy, robust, extramural collections through 
active dialogue with campus partners including faculty and 
students.

We believe that adherence to the University Libraries Collection Develop-
ment Philosophy will contribute to the intellectual, social, and emotional 
well-being of our students and other members of our campus community.

The next policy we focused on was the Library Code of Conduct, 
which provided us with the opportunity to have deep discussions 
about what it meant to decolonize our services, collections, and 
services. Filled with “no’s” and “don’ts”, our Code of Conduct now 
sounded harsh to our ears. Rather than revising it, we decided to take 
a new approach by creating Community Norms, which have been 
posted in both our physical and virtual spaces (https://www.stjohns.
edu/libraries). Adopted by the Library Faculty Council on November 
2, 2021, it reads:

https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries


LIGhTNING ROuNDS  353

St. John’s University Libraries foster the open exchange of ideas and inquiry 
in a respectful environment free of harassment. Harassment may include 
comments, gestures, facial expressions, or imagery that demeans people 
based on language, religion, ethnicity, gender, physical or mental disabil-
ity, physical appearance, or sexual preference. Those using library spaces, 
services and resources will treat other library users and employees with 
consideration and respect. We will respect the rights of others, and prac-
tice self-discipline. We will help protect the library collections and spaces 
while holding ourselves and each other accountable for keeping these 
norms. Together we can create a library environment that is welcoming, 
caring and affirming.

Making these changes to our policies was only one piece of the 
puzzle, the external piece; the second piece was the internal changes 
for our faculty, administrators, and staff. This work was continued 
under the direction of the Anti-Racism Task Force. 

As we continued with our work, we wanted to determine if our 
collections were in keeping with our commitment to anti-racism and 
decolonizing the Libraries. To that end, we decided to undergo a re-
view of our digital resource collections. After conducting an environ-
mental scan of our ebook collection, and a DEI comparative project 
with sister institutions, we found gaps in our collections that could 
be easily mitigated outside of a larger collection review process. We 
added to our digital collections:

• Approximately 200 DEI eBook titles
• African American Newspapers
• Civil Rights & Social Justice
• Oxford African American Studies Center
• Slavery in America & the World
• LGBTQ+ Source
• Women & Social Movements
• Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies

• Ethnic and Race Studies

• Ethnicities

• International Migration

• Journal of American Ethnic History

• Journal of Immigrant and Refugee Studies 



354  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

With these shifts in content and our commitment to highlighting 
more marginalized, non-Western voices and perspectives, we contin-
ue to take the steps necessary to move away from conglomerate pack-
ages and companies to provide more equitable content to our users.

At this point, we began to examine the organizational structure 
of the Libraries. We began by rethinking library-faculty roles and 
the potential for creating more DEI-focused positions and responsi-
bilities. These manifested in the creation of three new faculty titles: 
Coordinator for Inclusive Practices, the Critical Pedagogy Librarian 
for Student Success, and the Academic Engagement and Outreach 
Librarian. The coordinator position has been tasked with running 
scans, surveys, and focus groups across all areas of our work to en-
sure that our practices are in keeping with our commitment and 
were as inclusive as possible. Working groups were created for each 
area: collections, instruction, services, online access, library web-
site, Discovery layer of the catalog, and inclusive culture within the 
Libraries. This is ongoing work. The main priorities of the second 
position were designed to provide guidance on critical pedagogical 
approaches, use research-based approaches to help further library 
initiatives in this area, and to merge the ACRL Frames with critical 
theory frameworks and applicable lenses for our instructional prac-
tices. Finally, the Academic Engagement and Outreach Librarian has 
been working to design, coordinate and conduct outreach initiatives 
and strategic partnerships with a variety of collaborators on cam-
pus, coordinating with the library faculty liaisons to keep current 
on accreditation needs regarding library resources and services, as 
well as programs emphasizing the academic role of the University 
Libraries in advancing the strategic initiatives of the University. Ad-
ditionally, the Engagement and Outreach Librarian partnered with 
the assistant vice president for equity and inclusion to successfully 
procure an ALA Great Stories Grant, with the theme of “Deeper than 
Our Skins: The Present is a Conversation with the Past” (https://www.
ala.org/tools/programming/greatstories/resources/skins/libraries).

To repeat what was said earlier, this process to decolonize the Li-
braries was meant to be mindful and intentional, not just a one-off 
project that might be done to fix everything all at once. To that end, 
the second phase of this work delves into our programs, committees, 
and overall structure.

By the fall of 2022, the charge given to the Anti-Racism Task Force 
was nearing completion and the task force was dissolved. While the 

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LIGhTNING ROuNDS  355

work of that group continued to inform our next steps, the Dean 
created the Libraries Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity, and Anti-Racism 
Committee (LIDEA), which was charged with establishing goals, 
objectives and an action plan that supports the University Librar-
ies’ commitment to becoming an anti-racist institution in our col-
lections, services, policies, and spaces (https://www.ala.org/tools/
programming/greatstories/resources/skins/libraries). The goals of 
LIDEA are to:

• Incorporate principles of IDEA into all library policies,
• Revise service procedures to better to create a more inclu-

sive environment,
• Ensure collections support IDEA research and scholarship,
• Provide a plan to create physical and virtual spaces in the 

Libraries that are welcoming, inclusive, accessible and us-
able.

The first year of the committee work has seen the review, assess-
ment, and reworking of all library extant library policies (and several 
newly-created policies) to include IDEA-minded language and spirit. 
Simultaneously, we have a begun the process of revitalizing our in-
formation literacy services, through both the creation of our credit-
bearing information literacy program as well as our existing instruc-
tional workshops and liaison areas. Currently in development, the 
re-imagined information literacy program will be designed to have a 
more formalized credit-bearing structure that will offer courses that 
use critical pedagogical approaches and tools to incorporate critical 
perspectives more fully and explicitly into our students’ information 
literacy coursework, such as critical literacies in a global context or 
marginalized knowledge and other ways of knowing. Workshops 
will also be given to the Libraries’ faculty-librarians to show ways 
of incorporating critical pedagogical practices into their existing 
workshops and liaison areas.

An integral piece of the puzzle at any library is always the user, 
so to incorporate our students’ voices, perspectives, and needs into 
the University Libraries, we created the Libraries Student Advisory 
Board (LSAB). This advisory board is facilitated by a faculty member 
but only in a loose administrative role (i.e., booking rooms for meet-
ing times). Once the board members were chosen (with equal rep-
resentation across colleges, grade levels, and several other factors) 
and the first meeting convened, roles for the Chair and Recording 

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356  ATLA 2023 PROCEEDINGS

Secretary were voted on, and it was they who ran the board’s sched-
ules and agendas. They were tasked with serving as both conduits 
and advocates between the University Libraries’ administration 
and the larger student body to provide transparent information ex-
change between Libraries’ administration and the student body on 
programs, services, and collections, to promote library programs and 
collections to their peers, and most importantly provide feedback 
and recommendations from the student body on their research and 
resource needs. To that end, the first cohort of the LSAB provided the 
Dean with a report outlining several recommendations on our of-
ferings and services, which is currently under advisement with the 
Dean and Provost. Our other initiatives include incorporating anti-
racism and DEI efforts into our annual strategic plans going forward, 
as well as providing ongoing professional development opportuni-
ties for library faculty, administrators, and staff. 

The final piece of this change puzzle is in the unit level; it isn’t 
enough to have one or two people doing this work — instead ev-
eryone within the Libraries needs to be a part of it. And that can 
be done through mindful re-organization that replaces a static hi-
erarchical structure with a dynamic, fluid, and flexible approach 
that’s built on these shared roles, responsibilities, and knowledge. 
Although currently in the conceptual phase, the rationale behind the 
reorganization are: to develop an organizational structure for the 
University Libraries that is not steeped in whiteness and traditional 
power structures; to create an organizational structure that signi-
fies a non-Western approach to the organization of the University 
Libraries that is based on space and place and community rather 
than power; to replace a static, rigid, hierarchical approach to or-
ganizational structure with a dynamic, fluid, flexible approach that 
is built upon shared and/or overlapping roles, responsibilities, and 
knowledge; and, to build a foundational organizational structure for 
the University Libraries that incorporates the practical application 
of the theories of critical librarianship and critical pedagogy. Using 
these goals to shape how our unit is structured and functions can 
only enhance our services and commitment to inclusivity and sup-
port for our students.

Important to keep in mind during all these changes is that the 
Libraries are not the only ones doing this work on our campus. We 
are fortunate that there are so many colleagues and partners already 
doing great work on campus who are willing to collaborate to share 



LIGhTNING ROuNDS  357

ideas and resources. To that end, the Libraries have developed work-
ing partnerships with the Academic Center for Equity and Inclusion, 
the Inclusive Teaching Institute, the newly formed Critical Race and 
Ethnic Studies Institute, and the newly re-formed RESPECT conflict 
mediation specialists.

The overview of the ongoing anti-racism projects and our work to 
continue to intentionally decolonize the Libraries as presented above 
are still at the beginning stages. We have a great deal of work to do, 
but we continue to remain strong in our commitment to become an 
anti-racist institution. 

REFERENCES

American Library Association. n.d. “Deeper than our Skins: The 
Present is a Conversation with the Past.” Accessed June 28, 
2023. https://www.ala.org/tools/programming/greatstories/
resources/skins. 

St. John’s University. n.d. “Antiracism Statement from University 
Leadership.” Accessed June 28, 2023. https://www.stjohns.edu/
news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-
senior-leadership.

St. John’s University Libraries. n.d. “Collection Development 
Philosophy.” Accessed June 28, 2023. https://www.stjohns.edu/
libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision.

———. n.d. “Joint Statement on Anti-Racism.” Accessed June 
28, 2023. https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/
antiracism-statement-and-action-plan. 

———. n.d. “Mission and Vision.” Accessed June 28, 2023. https://
www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-
vision. 

———. n.d. “St. John’s University Libraries’ Community Norms.” 
Accessed June 28, 2023. https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries. 

———. n.d. “University Libraries Inclusivity, Diversity, Equity 
and Anti-Racism Committee (LIDEA).” Accessed June 28, 2023. 
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-
statement-and-action-plan. 

https://www.ala.org/tools/programming/greatstories/resources/skins
https://www.ala.org/tools/programming/greatstories/resources/skins
https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/news-media/announcements/antiracism-statement-university-senior-leadership
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/our-mission-and-vision
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan
https://www.stjohns.edu/libraries/about-libraries/antiracism-statement-and-action-plan



