Quick Summary
It is part of the eLibraryMN mission to continually review the database resources to ensure that we are honoring and supporting all of the diverse populations across the state. We have published a report of our ongoing work and findings in this essential area.
The Outreach and Instruction unit at Minitex presented the results of a DEIA audit of the eLibraryMN databases in the fall of 2023. This work is published in the Educators and Librarians Learning Center on the eLibraryMN portal. As part of sharing our findings, we gathered input from the Minnesota library community and pledged to reach out to the eLibraryMN database vendors to discuss the process, share impressions of our colleagues' experiences in managing representation in library database collections, and learn about their perspective on this work as database providers. We engaged in productive and collaborative conversations with the vendors' teams and had a mutually enlightening experience.
We are now sharing our findings and reflections in a report with organizations who perform similar functions to Minitex in statewide and/or consortial library database provision. If there is interest, we are open to organizing more conversation with colleagues around this issue. We invite you to review our paper, A DEIA Look at a Statewide Online Database Collection: Process, Results and Recommendations. If the work resonates with you, we’d love to hear your thoughts and to encourage you to consider the following:
- Reach out to Minitex at mtxref@umn.edu to share your experiences with diversity audit and collections work
- Bring up the topic of diverse representation in aggregated databases to your own vendors
- Ensure that representation is purposefully considered when making purchasing choices.
- Advocate for improved findability functionality within subscribed databases to make this work more accessible for the average patron.
Through collective action, we can share our unified attention to these topics with vendors. Through our efforts we can influence vendors to create affordable content collections for large organizations that ensure everyone is seen, heard, and represented in the research literature.
