Academic library initiatives “for the public good:” Diversity by Design or retrofitting?

The Contribution of Library and Information Science Education to Decolonising

“…Given the colonial legacy of our university campuses, it is first important to remember that this will have inevitably affected the contemporary services and collections of the academic libraries which support them. A brief but balanced perspective is given by Farnel et al (2021), who observe, 'Postsecondary institutions and the libraries within them are deeply rooted in the imperial enterprise', asking the vital question whether any efforts made by academic libraries to decolonise or indigenise could ever be truly effective when they are 'unfolding within a system that continues to be part of the colonial project' (Farnel et al, 2021, 168-9)? In order to consider this question Farnel et al draw from the museums and archives sectors, firstly using Romero's argument that 'Being a part of a history does not necessarily lock you into any one particular future' (Romero, 2019, para 2), and secondly Christen and Anderson's statement of 'commitment' and 'obligation' for their archival work at the University of Alberta to 'undo, redo, and build again structures that embody meaningful and mutual obligations to see, hear, and enact different ways of knowing, being, and relating' (Christen and Anderson, 2019, 107).…”