Using Open Educational Resources to Promote Social Justice. CJ Ivory and Angela Pashia, eds. Chicago: ACRL Press, 2022, 299p. $92 ($82.80 ALA members) ISBN: 978-0-8389-3678-8.

As I reviewed this book in early 2023, several states were demonstrating that they are afraid of the lessons of the past. They see Critical Race Theory (CRT) in education as a threat to academic and secondary institutions. But Open Education Resources (OER) is a game changer to Social Justice and CRT educational areas. CJ Ivory and Angela Pashia share sixteen chapters that discuss the origins of OER and CRT and related issues, including decolonizing OER and how to support faculty development in social justice using innovative OER platforms. In addition, each chapter offers a plethora of scholarly references in related areas of social justice/DEI and Open Educational scholarly research.

The Open Education framework has shaped my social justice viewpoint and is part of the rubric I use to discern how social justice concepts (e.g., diversity, equity, inclusion, and justice) impact student success rates in completion, retention, graduation, transfers, and beyond. These concepts are linked to the use of openly licensed materials that allow libraries to share their resources globally, empowering individuals to teach, learn, and research.

Several chapters are standouts in this collection. In “Repairing the Curriculum,” Kevin Adams and Samantha Dannick showcase how OER work can bridge the gap between Western and Indigenous research. They echo Robin Wall Kimmerer, writing that we must “find an intersection between the worlds of Indigenous wisdom and scientific knowledge” (29). A pluralist society embraces oral histories/knowledge and scientific rigor. The authors added Wall Kimmerer as an example of how open education can coexist with Merriam-Webster’s definition of science as a “system of knowledge covering general truths or the operation of general laws especially as obtained and tested through scientific method”(merriam-webster.com/dictionary/science).

Inside the subchapter relating to a lack of OER in health science education, “Tensions in Developing and Integrating OER for use in Health Disciplines Curricula,” I believe there was a missed opportunity to incorporate how OER relates to other Open areas such as Open Data, Access, and Science. This missed opportunity could be because the authors wanted to focus on OER (or lack of) in this field, but the adjacent work could compensate and, in some ways, encourage more Creative Commons licensing materials.

Dawn (Nikki) Cannon-Rech offers important insights in the chapter “Beyond Affordability.” Many institutions and secondary schools engage OER work on a continuum between passive and active. At Georgia Southern, a librarian sought to go beyond awareness, developing a “more active and integrated approach to support OER education and advocacy through workshops, semester-long learning communities, and one-on-one consultations.” Readers of this book will find Cannon-Rech’s “Inclusive Excellence Action Plan” a prime example of a framework that showcases the strength of openly licensed materials and DEIJ.

The strengths of OER have long been lauded, but its weaknesses in addressing the needs of colonized and Indigenous communities continue to be documented. In chapters 9 and 10, authors Josiline Phiri Chigwada and Alkasim Hamisu Abdu discuss these crucial issues. Chigwada describes the ways legacies of colonization have shaped how governments and higher education relate to each other and the impact on OER adoption. Abdu addresses the status of OER in the African countries of Zimbawe, Nigeria, and South Africa.

In chapter 15, Barbara Murphy and Claire Terrell show readers how to create equity when working with a music curriculum organized predominately around European white male composers. The authors argue that the “discussions of non-Western music and music theories rarely occur within music theory classes.” They detail how diversity is necessary in both performance ensembles and music theory. Along with a discussion of race and gender biases, the authors share as an example the OER website “Music Theory Materials,” which encourages selections for “women and BIPOC composers.”

The final chapter describes a community OER institute in Caribbean Studies. The primary vision of this institute was “to foster an enhanced community of practice for digital humanities and digital pedagogy specific to the needs and concerns of Caribbean studies.” The institute identified barriers to OER and DH in the discipline, beginning with limited bandwidth and access to platforms in the regions. The authors describe three platforms (The Diaspora Project, the Dutch Caribbean Digital Platform, and Chronicling America) and the ample OER included for digital Caribbean Studies. They point to open source platforms like Omeka as crucial for engaging students. After the institute, participants created an open access site for their OER work, “designed to work as a nexus that links institute information and products in a meaningful way to increase their accessibility and to amplify participant contributions.”

The authors point to limitations brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and hurricanes as basic needs preempted teaching needs. A larger shift toward global social justice will lead to more OER opportunities in Caribbean studies.

The chapters in this book seek to persuade the reader that OER has its place in social justice concepts in PreK through grade twelve, higher education, and beyond. Higher education reform is daunting, but this book can show the path toward societal change. Overall, the best part of this book showcases how decolonizing openly licensed materials and owning OER platforms are a critical aspect of the OER field. — Beatrice Canales, San Antonio College