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Moving Beyond the Acronym – American Libraries Magazine

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Moving Beyond the Acronym

Academic librarians talk about doubling down on DEI efforts and core values in an uncertain climate

January 2, 2026, Facebook Twitter Email Print

The world of college admissions drastically shifted in 2023, when the Supreme Court’s landmark rulings in two cases—Students for Fair Admissions (SFFA) v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina—rejected race-conscious affirmative action policies. Just two years later, as some schools report declining enrollment of students of color, a flurry of executive orders has threatened diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) initiatives at colleges and universities.

Last April, Choice, the publishing unit of the American Library Association’s Association of College and Research Libraries, convened the virtual panel “Affirmative Action and the Future of DEI.” Moderated by Fatima Mohie-Eldin, social sciences editor for Choice and editor of its Toward Inclusive Excellence blog, the panel explored how these coalescing issues are impacting academic librarians and information scholars.

The panelists were: Sean Burns, associate professor at University of Kentucky’s School of Information Science in Lexington; Renate Chancellor, associate professor and associate dean for access, ethics, and belonging at Syracuse (N.Y.) University’s School of Information Studies; and Jerome Offord Jr., associate university librarian for community development, belonging, and engagement at Harvard Library in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The following are edited excerpts of their discussion, which considered how institutions can pursue and reaffirm their commitments to DEI principles, the murky legal and political territory around education and information, and how collaboration can support access and inclusion. View the full program.

Higher education institutions are facing increasing pressure to restructure or even eliminate their DEI programs and offices. How can they continue to advance their commitments to DEI in this environment?

Jerome Offord Jr.: One of our biggest challenges around diversity, equity, and inclusion is that, over the years, we’ve talked about DEI in terms of business cases, like diversifying staff and hitting metrics, but we’ve failed to recognize that this is human-behavior work. It’s change work, and change doesn’t happen in a day, a year, or even a few years. It’s about relearning how we live and interact as human beings.

Whatever the acronym, the work itself isn’t going away, whether in academic or public libraries or in LIS programs. We’re still asking: How do you serve the community you’re hired to serve? And if you look at that community, its users bring diverse perspectives and needs, right? So how do we educate ourselves, examine our biases, and ensure that we’re collecting, purchasing, and producing information that meets those needs?

From that foundation, diversity work must always continue. It’s hard, especially when the acronyms become political targets. This administration’s actions have simply revealed what many people already felt about this work, and that just means we have more to do.

Sean Burns: It’s important that any strategic response recognizes that these policies operate on two levels. First, there’s the attack on DEI programs under the claim that DEI itself is discriminatory. Then there’s the argument that people should be judged, hired, and promoted purely on “merit.” But decades of research show how systems of injustice and unequal distributions of capital and property have advantaged certain races and genders over others. This false, zero-sum narrative about merit ignores the reality that many have been rewarded because of their race, gender identity, or inherited wealth.

As for what libraries can do, we’re about access: access to knowledge, to multiple perspectives, to the understanding that no single knowledge domain is supreme. Whether we call it DEI or something else, that’s the core work libraries have always done.

Renate Chancellor: Until something is actually passed into law, we should continue the work we’ve been doing. We still need to foster inclusion and a sense of belonging for everyone—those who work in libraries as well as across the university. Diversity, equity, and inclusion are for everyone. Universities can’t look away.

As for academic libraries, I’ve always found librarians to be wonderfully opinionated. We’re not afraid to express how we feel, and we should continue doing that. If you have the opportunity to serve on a committee or in a leadership role, take it. Once you’re in the room with deans, provosts, and chancellors, you have their ear and can speak up.

A February 2025 article in Bloomberg Law examined the legal ambiguity of these executive orders, noting that the administration does not define DEI or list any specific activities it considers illegal. What effect does this ambiguity have? Does this uncertainty create an opportunity to rethink or strengthen our DEI frameworks?

Burns: The article was fascinating. The authors make an important distinction between what they call “lifting DEI” and “leveling DEI.” They argue that lifting DEI, or efforts that give preference to underrepresented groups, is what these anti-DEI measures most directly target. Leveling DEI, by contrast, seeks to remove bias from evaluation processes, aiming for so-called meritocracy.

On the surface, that seems rational. The authors give the example of symphony orchestras. In 1970, women held less than 5% of symphony orchestra positions. Lifting DEI would mean giving women a hiring preference; leveling DEI meant holding blind auditions behind a screen.

While the distinction between lifting and leveling is interesting, it can also be a distraction. Real progress requires both. Sometimes we must lift, as in the example of ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] accommodations for ergonomic chairs. Those don’t remove bias; they raise people up—sometimes literally!

Chancellor: The library profession has spent years trying to define diversity. There have been countless articles debating “What is diversity?” That fixation, I think, hurt us. We spent too much time defining it instead of simply recognizing that it exists.

Likewise, the people attacking DEI now don’t truly understand it. They don’t like the acronym or what they think it represents. Much of the backlash is really aimed at Black and Brown people, because that’s who they believe DEI is for, but diversity is far broader. It includes people with disabilities, those who are neurodivergent, and others whose experiences and trauma led to the very policies we now call DEI.

Even before the recent wave of executive orders targeting DEI, the 2023 Supreme Court decision upended affirmative action in admissions. How can the library profession strategize around these compounding challenges for diversity on campus?

Offord: I think these executive orders will give cover to those who were never truly committed to recruiting or supporting diverse populations. They’ll say, “See? We don’t have to do this anymore.” Unfortunately, that’s going to be the outcome in some places.

One of the hardest things I read after the ruling was an article where someone wrote, “See? I told you, these people only got in because they were Black or Brown.” But what those critics missed was that some students may have chosen not to apply to or attend these institutions because of what’s happening with DEI. Many are returning to minority-serving institutions, where they feel safer and more supported.

We have to recognize that this new generation of students grew up with DEI as part of their worldview. They’ve experienced it firsthand. Older generations—boomers, Gen X, even some millennials—see it differently. There’s a huge generational gap in understanding. But I think we’ll see younger people fighting for this work, as we’ve already seen on campuses. Students want this. As institutions and as a nation, we need to embrace a diversity of students to prepare for the future.

Chancellor: There’s overwhelming data showing that when classrooms are diverse, all students benefit. Each institution will now have to confront an uncomfortable question: Do we truly believe in diversity and inclusion or are we just going to go along with the current political tide?

I remember when college websites would show one Black student, one Asian student, one Latinx student, just enough to check a box. That always bothered me, because it wasn’t real representation. I worry we’ll move even further backward now to a point where we don’t even pretend to include everyone.

Do we truly believe in diversity and inclusion or are we just going to go along with the current political tide?—Renate Chancellor, associate professor and associate dean for access, ethics, and belonging at Syracuse (N.Y.) University’s School of Information Studies

There are still legal ways to recruit equitably. For instance, instead of targeting specific demographic groups, institutions can target certain ZIP codes, particularly those with more diverse populations. For graduate programs, they can establish a presence at historically Black colleges and universities.

There’s room for strategy and creativity here. The same applies to hiring faculty and staff. We can still pursue diversity within the bounds of the 2023 affirmative action ruling, but it requires intention and persistence.

Editor’s Note: The featured image at the top is from WP AI.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: Moving Beyond the Acronym | American Libraries Magazine

2025 Holiday Gift Guide for Librarians and Book Lovers – American Libraries Magazine

2025 Holiday Gift Guide for Librarians and Book Lovers

By Alison Marcotte | November 16, 2025

Looking for clever and thoughtful gift ideas for the book lover in your life? Bookmark this article: American Libraries has gathered an eclectic list of literary-themed gifts—covering all price points and ranging from apparel to tech to kitchen accessories.

$10 or less

Book Club Cocktail Napkins ($9)

Make your book club laugh with these “Welcome to ‘Book Club’” foil-stamped cocktail napkins from Pretty Alright Goods. These three-ply napkins will be a fun conversation starter at your next literary meetup, whether you’re reading or just “reading” (aka eating snacks and catching up on each other’s lives).

“From the Library of” Bookplates ($9.95)

Your friends’ books will never go missing with these cute bookplates from Ban.dō. These labels, which come in a set of 14, help book owners personalize and take pride in their extensive collections.

$20 or less

Tiny Bookshop Game ($19.99)

Tiny Bookshop is a perfect match for anyone who’s dreamed of running a bookshop. In Skystone Games’ cozy narrative simulation, you sell books by authors such as John Green, Toni Morrison, and Oscar Wilde out of a mobile bookstore in a fictional seaside town. This relaxing game is available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Nintendo Switch.

Book Club Bookmark Set ($20)

These Kate Spade bookmarks double as awards for your reading pals. They include humorous superlatives like “Most Likely to Listen to the Audio Version,” “Most Likely to Guess the Ending,” and “Most Likely to Fall Asleep Reading.”

$30 or less

“Censorship Is So 1984” T-Shirt (Men’s / Women’s) ($21.99)

ALA’s “Censorship Is So 1984” shirt references George Orwell’s cautionary tale 1984, about the dangers of totalitarianism and the restriction of free expression. Anyone passionate about the freedom to read will appreciate this shirt, available in a wide selection of colors.

Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: 2025 Holiday Gift Guide for Librarians and Book Lovers | American Libraries Magazine

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For the Federal Workers – Editorial – Library Journal

For the Federal Workers | Editorial

by Hallie Rich, Oct 02, 2025 | Filed in News

A tribute to the lasting impact of civil service

When I was in high school, the federal agency where my dad worked for almost 25 years—the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)—was closed. It was devastating to our family, and, for my dad, ended a career in public service marked by meaningful contributions to the American public.

The scale of the ICC’s closure—only a few hundred employees remained when it was abolished in 1995—pales in comparison to current efforts to downsize the federal workforce. Since January, the Trump administration and its Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have implemented widespread employee reductions. The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit with a mission to improve government, estimates that more than 199,000 civil servants have left the workforce as a result of the administration’s firings, forced relocations, and deferred resignation program.

Although positioned as reducing “waste, fraud, and abuse,” the cuts have been more chainsaw than scalpel. For libraries, the damage to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Library of Congress, and National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) started with the ouster of their female leaders—Dr. Cyndee Landrum, Dr. Carla Hayden, and Dr. Colleen Shogan, respectively—and will continue with budget cuts.

In looking at the numbers, it can be easy to lose sight of individual losses, but we shouldn’t. Earlier this year I was moved reading Michael Lewis’s latest book, Who is Government? The Untold Story of Public Service, a collection of essays celebrating the individuals quietly doing deeply consequential work. Former NARA Chief Innovation Officer Pamela Wright is featured in one, which captures the impact of her work to digitize the National Archive’s 13 billion records: “Every document, map, photograph, recording and film in the National Archives that Wright and her colleagues have scanned and transferred to the internet—accessible from a laptop in Lubbock or a smartphone in Sitka—makes the agency more democratic and more fair, which means the country is, too.”

That same commitment to access is embedded in IMLS’s mission to advance, support, and empower the nation’s museums and libraries. Following an executive order in March calling for its elimination, IMLS staff have suffered the whiplash of being placed on administrative leave, laid off, and then called back to work.

Yet remaining IMLS staff managed to administer outstanding grants to states over the summer and post the data from its latest annual Public Libraries Survey. Our October issue feature story, “Concerned But Committed” (pp. 16–18), documents the cascading impact of reduced services, imperiled libraries, and subsequent local job losses that IMLS cuts represent.

With a government shutdown now in effect, workers across federal agencies, including the Library of Congress, Government Publishing Office, IMLS, and NARA, will be furloughed or, in some instances, required to report to work without pay.

When the president fired the librarian of Congress in May, the brevity of her termination letter spoke volumes about the way the administration views the knowledge, expertise, and dedication to service that Dr. Hayden—and so many federal workers—possess.

Asked by CBS News if she thought her firing was personal, Hayden said she did not. She’s probably right, but it sure does feel personal to me and many librarians.

Thinking back to when my dad lost his job, our family didn’t celebrate it as advancing government efficiency; we mourned what my dad, a person who worked hard for many years on behalf of the American people, lost.

To the civil servants whose livelihoods and work have been upended over the past nine months and who are now grappling with a government shutdown—we honor your contributions. Wright captures the meaning of federal employment when she describes the oath workers take: “That oath makes you realize that what you are doing is fundamentally important to the country, no matter what capacity you are in while working for the federal government—that your work and how you conduct yourself matters, and you need to be aware of the significance of it.”

Updated October 2, 2025

Hallie Rich, [email protected], Hallie Rich is Editor-in-Chief of Library Journal.

Editor’s Note: I am proud to share this post, and of Library Journal’s stance on this vital issue now. We are in danger of losing Democracy, and it will end our libraries. They will burn books. Listen. Pay Attention. We are at the brink of authoritarianism.

Continue/Read Original Article Here: For the Federal Workers | Editorial | Library Journal

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