Chair/Lead: Bret Farley/Megan Norman

Members: Ann Schaenzer, Don Bezanson,  Events & Engagement, Karen Olson, Joanna Hunt

The Problem

In the past book displays were done from the perspective of the majority viewpoint and often missed opportunities to highlight other perspectives, viewpoints, cultures, and communities. 

LITs Events and Engagement Team, which meets independently, and as a part of, the LITs DEI Book Display group, has talked through various displays over the years. We try to add new displays when we can. Trying to make it more known to the campus community that we welcome groups putting up their displays in the Rolvaag atrium.

Goals

We will create book displays and other displays that are crafted with purpose to reflect our constituents and others around the world. We will consider all of our community and work to ensure that everyone sees themselves, their viewpoints, or their community reflected in a year’s worth of displays. The display work requires the engagement of staff, faculty and students — far beyond the LITS Events and Engagement Team (EET) — to be successful. 

Actions Taken

We will seek input, advice, and feedback from our constituents to not only learn what they are interested to see, but also hear feedback on what they do see. We will also work to increase the involvement of more LITS staff in the process of curating and creating the displays. The LITS Events and Engagement Team (EET)  will be asked to give a monthly presentation at each LITS meeting, and book displays can be included as part of their presentation.

To expand access to these displays, we will create digital collections so the displays can be accessed long after the physical displays have been taken down. We will also create an online feedback mechanism to capture community feedback and ideas on the work, potentially through the use of a QR code placed at an exhibit.

We have IT, Rolvaag (almost all library areas represented), and Halvorson staff on both groups to try and get as many staff perspectives as possible, though we encourage anyone in LITs to bring ideas to our group for displays.

The Rolvaag and Halveron library Events and Engagement team, which consists of both library and IT staff, works with all the LITs teams, if they need help promoting their events in and around the library or the campus.

Accomplishments so Far 

1. The EET has been more deliberate these past two years to make sure the displays are more inclusive and reflect our community. The EET meets to discuss a schedule of displays based on campus/regional/cultural events and then work to put the displays up. Displays have included materials about the following topics: immigration, female activists, anti-bullying, Black history, women’s history, community care and healing, race and policing, Native American heritage, Asian American and Pacific Islander heritage, autism, and Pride. Materials are sourced from all collections, including special collections, archives, the Norwegian-American Historical Association, government documents, and others.

2. EET has a student assistant that helps us with pulling materials and putting up physical displays. We’ve recently gotten permissions updated so that our student assistant can create digital displays that coincide with our physical displays.

3. We have a whiteboard in the atrium with a new question posted weekly for patrons to answer (something the Music Library has been doing for quite some time and their students seem to enjoy). So, not a materials display, but fun questions to engage the patron.

4. Leaning toward “mini displays” in the future to combine a number of the “national days” to have up for more time, but then a few items for each to highlight materials that we have patrons may be unaware of (ex., March: women’s day, poetry day, theater day, Cesar Chavez day, etc.).

5. We have added new information to the Book Display Request page in order to encourage more submissions and make the process more efficient. 

6. We are also working in collaboration with the “New Materials Section of Website” group to plan ways in which book displays and the “New in the Libraries” section of the website can complement each other and form a cohesive experience when presenting new materials focused on diversity.