Creating an Inclusive Library: Approaches for Increasing Engagement and Use with Students of Color, Ngoc-Yen Tran, Michael J. Aguilar II, & Adriana Poo (eds.), ACRL, 2024. 456p. Softcover, $125.00. 9798892556217

Edited by Ngoc-Yen Tran, Michael J. Aguilar II, and Adriana Poo, Creating an Inclusive Library: Approaches for Increasing Engagement and Use with Students of Color showcases how librarians and library workers from various colleges and universities prioritize the information needs of students of color. The book addresses how to manage concerns that impact students of color through library instruction, collection development, and community building. Contributing authors provide guidelines to encourage libraries to launch their own initiatives and programming centered on diversity, equity, inclusion, and antiracism. The book covers how academic libraries responded to critical events throughout 2020 and 2021. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement, the Stop Asian Hate movement, and national DEI measurements, library workers developed initiatives and programming to support students of color despite, and because of, structural inequities. Notably, the editors draw attention to the sociopolitical issues that limit levels of engagement due to “fears of retribution, especially toward retention, tenure, and/or promotion” (ix).The editors divide this collection of articles into multiple sections to help readers locate chapters of interest and allow easy navigation through the title’s six themes:

• Welcoming and sense of belonging
• Culturally relevant practices
• Building representation and inclusion
• Collaborations and co-creation
• Community building and engagement
• Fostering diverse student employees

The editors categorize chapters within the most applicable section of the book while also acknowledging that chapters could potentially fall into multiple categories. This disclaimer should be carefully considered, particularly since several sections overlap quite extensively. As for each chapter, the editors requested that contributor(s) include a positionality statement as the first footnote providing reasoning for its placement within a given section. Since most of the authors are people of color, the positionality statements challenge the myth of objectivity allowing readers to better understand how identity politics inform research interests. As a result, the book not only promotes praxis-based approaches to engage students/readers of color, but it also strives to decenter whiteness and encourage the voices of ethno-racialized librarians who have been historically excluded from academic scholarship.

Throughout the first section, authors discuss the development of critical services to welcome students of color and cultivate their sense of belonging. Some of the initiatives involved fostering belonging through a summer bridge program, facilitating workshops centered on photo-sharing and storytelling, launching inclusive outreach efforts, and facilitating student-centered exhibits and oral history projects. In the second section, authors examine the process of disengaging from universal approaches and implementing culturally relevant services into their own academic libraries. They address the needs of BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) students in several ways including teaching Native American students through the framework of cultural humility, supporting Black students by providing inclusive spaces, establishing student-centered programming, and developing archival walking tours during Hispanic Heritage Month. The third section demonstrates how academic librarians approach collection development focusing on representation and inclusion. The authors offer different methods to building library collections that reflect the identities and experiences of BIPOC students. While acquisition is a critical step, the authors also emphasize the importance of providing accessibility, implementing inclusive cataloging, requesting faculty recommendations, and partnering with students of color. The fourth section dives deeper into the theme of collaboration and co-creation. Authors discuss various ways of creating an inclusive library, such as co-curating an exhibit to serve indigenous communities, enhancing user experiences for BIPOC communities by gathering feedback from students and library workers, designing programming based on zine-making for Asian American student groups, and organizing Wikipedia edit-a-thons to build community for students of color. The fifth section offers more insight into building community and engaging with students of color. The authors approach community work in groundbreaking ways including initiating a series of panel discussions addressing institutional racism, supporting BIPOC students within Ethnic Studies libraries, advocating for Asian Canadian students through collection development and online resources, and organizing a panel to celebrate the contributions of Latinx library workers. The final section focuses on the importance of diversifying the student workforce and fostering professional development. The authors present how they provided job opportunities and improved retention rates for BIPOC students by developing IT internships and student ambassador programs.

Creating an Inclusive Library: Approaches for Increasing Engagement and Use with Students of Color documents the ways that academic librarians and library workers advocate for BIPOC students through the development of inclusive spaces, collections, and services. For this reason, this book would be an invaluable addition to collections within academic libraries. In particular, academic librarians serving students in library degree programs would greatly benefit from this book. It is critical for MLIS students to have access to books that offer resources and strategies devoted to anti-racism/inclusion efforts. As the editors express, “[w]e hope the resources and approaches contained within this book help all library workers engage with this critical and vital work and to build a community of support” (xiii). Currently, working librarians and MLIS students face policies that may restrict DEI which makes this title timely. Due to changing sociopolitical environments, academic, public, and school librarians will need to consider new and creative approaches to continue supporting communities of color. —Nery Alcivar-Estrella, Ethnic Studies Librarian, California State University, Northridge