LibGuides: Diversifying Our Library: Home

We aim to foster an inclusive community, where all staff and students feel and have an equal opportunity to succeed.

Embedding the principles of equality, diversity and inclusion across our University is one of the priorities set out in the University's Strategic Plan 2019-23.

The purpose of striving to diversify the library is to ensure that people who are marginalised by society’s perspectives – for example, by race, ethnicity, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, physical ability, or socioeconomic class – are better represented.

In support of this we aim to:

Diversify our collections to reflect the diversity of the University’s population and to celebrate the many cultures that are reflected in our community
Encourage the development of collections created by and representative of marginalized and underrepresented groups
Promote diverse voices in current collections
Support the critical evaluation of sources of information through information skills library instruction and training to ensure different perspectives are recognised
Promote our library spaces as inclusive spaces where all users feel welcome and included
Advocate for diverse groups through library displays and exhibitions
Publicize our diversity initiatives and progress

Diversity is....

"The practice or quality of including or involving people from a range of different social and ethnic backgrounds and of different genders, sexual orientations, etc.".

Oxford English Dictionary Online.

What we have done so far

We are working with students and staff on our collections to reflect the diversity of the University’s population and to celebrate the various cultures that are reflected in our community.
We are working with academic colleagues and University departments to develop and promote reading lists to aid understanding of diversity issues.
We have had a number of onsite and online displays on diversity themes, including Black History Month, Pride, and other celebrations.
We are ordering and adding to stock a new collection on behalf of the EDI team.

We thank the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Office for supporting our library collections development.

Checkout Equality Diversity and Inclusion Collection.

Get Involved

Students

The library wants your suggestions for new material to add to our collections that cover overlooked voices and under-represented communities. Please submit your suggestion to Library@atu.ie and we’ll do our best to make the library collections more inclusive.

Staff

We are looking for academic colleagues to work with us on diversifying our collections. If you are looking for assistance with developing collections to support a developing curriculum, please get in touch with your Subject Librarian.