IN DEPTH
Decolonising the library: Making space for new narratives
As Higher Education looks at how to decolonise curricula, Regina Everitt and Jess Crilly – editors of Facet’s Narrative Expansions: Interpreting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries – look at how decolonisation is being enacted in libraries in various contexts and places. In this Q&A they show how the picture is changing as the decolonisation movement continues to gain support, and ask how to make sure momentum is not lost.
CAN you introduce yourself? Both pro- fessionally, and in terms of your role with Narrative Expansions: Inter- preting Decolonisation in Academic Libraries?
RE: I am Regina Everitt, Assistant Chief Operating Officer (ACOO) (Service Excel- lence) and Director of Library, Archives and Learning Services (LALS) at University of East London. I have strategic leadership responsibility for delivering services that meet the learning, teaching and research needs of our institution, community and collaborative partner stakeholders. I am also lead for the cross-institution customer experience strategy. So, that’s the day job! As one of four black or brown global ethnic majority (GEM) Directors and Assistant Directors of academic libraries in the UK, that I am aware of, I am committed to developing more GEM staff to leadership positions in the HE sector to better represent the diverse stakeholders at our institutions. When I was appointed as Director, I was the only black or brown GEM that I was aware of, so four is a great improvement!
So, how does that link with Narrative Expansions? Well, in the introduction, we reference Keele University’s Manifesto for Decolonising the Curriculum to unpack the term ‘decolonisation’:
20 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Decolonisation involves identifying colonial systems, structures and relationships, and working to challenge those systems. It is not ‘integration’ or simply the token inclusion of the intellectual achievements of non-white cultures. Rather, it involves a paradigm shift from a culture of exclusion and denial to the making of space for other political philosophies and knowledge systems. It’s a culture shift to think more widely about why common knowledge is what it is, and in so doing adjusting cultural perceptions and power relations in real and significant ways. – Keele University, 2018
So for me, GEM representation at lead- ership level is an integral and visible part of this paradigm shift toward broadening “cultural perceptions and power relations”.
JC: I am Jess Crilly, and I have worked most of my career in academic libraries: most recently I was Associate Director for Content and Discovery at University of the Arts London, responsible for the manage- ment of library and archive collections, and I retired in 2020. It was in that role that I really became interested in the significance of collections for our students and their sense of belonging in the institution, in critical librarianship and decolonisation. I wanted to understand the term decolonisa- tion, as different from the familiar ‘diversity’
April-May 2022
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