At a glance
Curating an inclusive collection at Oak Park Public Library
Manual tagging showed the diversity of new material but never the whole collection. DEI Analysis gave Oak Park a holistic view across twelve industry-respected DEI topics.
Branches
Population served
DEI topics analyzed
The challenge
What the library was up against
Providing an inclusive, accessible collection has always been a priority at Oak Park Public Library. In 2018 the library began auditing the inclusivity of small parts of the collection, and from 2020 staff tagged newly selected material where the author, character or subject identified as belonging to a diverse community.
That process recognized the diversity of new material, but it did not cover backlist titles and gave no holistic view of the collection.
The solution
What they did
The introduction of DEI Analysis in 2021 gave the team a new toolset: collection management staff can evaluate the collection against twelve industry-respected DEI topics across both print and digital collections.
Flexible views of the data
Flexible dashboard filters let the team view the analysis in different ways — by title or by number of copies — so they can compensate for subjects where little is published by adding more copies of the few titles that exist.
DEI visibility while weeding
DEI-tagged items also surface inside collectionHQ's weeding action plans, so inclusive content is visible at the point of a removal decision.
The results
What changed
Understocked areas, made visible
Understocked areas are now visible, including disability and neurodiversity content where publishing has historically been thin.
Safer removal decisions
Staff can see whether items appearing in a collection removal report are tagged as DEI before acting on them.
Representation, print and digital
Representation of diverse content improved across both print and digital collections.
“There has been a shortage of disabilities and neurodiversity content published. Now we're starting to see more of this subject and have been able to address that gap in our collection, which I can see clearly in the information provided by DEI Analysis.”
Dontaná McPherson-Joseph
Collection Management Librarian, Oak Park Public Library
More case studies
Other libraries, other pressures
Collection management
Rebuilding stock management after deep budget cuts
After service closures, a third fewer librarians and a change of LMS, South Gloucestershire used collectionHQ to re-establish a collection management process — and gave dead stock a second life worth 9,017 extra circulations.
South Gloucestershire Council Libraries
South Gloucestershire, UK
5 min read
DEI
Curating an inclusive collection at Evanston Public Library
A decade-long collectionHQ customer cut Dead on Arrival stock from 17.5% to 14.1% while lifting DEI representation from 21.9% to 24.9% — by promoting books rather than weeding them.
Evanston Public Library
Evanston, Illinois, USA
5 min read
Efficiency
A single platform to manage materials and gauge usage
A floating collection was pooling at certain branches, and diverse purchasing was tracked on spreadsheets. A methodical Collection Check rollout across ten locations changed both.
Marin County Free Library
Marin County, California, USA
5 min read
See what your collection data could tell you
Book a demo with us and see exactly how collectionHQ turns your library’s data into a clear plan of action.
