Talis Webinar: Diversifying and Decolonising the Curriculum with Reading Lists

CILIP NE Treasurer Beth Houlis shares her reflections on a recent webinar she attended:

In February, I attended a webinar organised by our reading list management system, Talis Aspire, about decolonising and diversifying the curriculum through reading lists. The two speakers, Kat Halliday from the University of Warwick and Sarah Akhtaruzzaman from Aston University, discussed how their institutions have used reading lists to support the decolonisation of teaching and learning. They shared how they are attempting to address the attainment gap between white and BAME students by diversifying reading lists and ensuring their content accurately reflects the student population.

Kat explained that there is sometimes too much onus on reading lists. They show the library’s resources and efforts towards decolonisation but are not enough to solely address the issue. Reading lists represent our collections which change organically following trends in research and teaching. Because Northumbria University Library operates without subject librarians, we rely on these changes to diversify reading lists. While we can’t suggest texts to academics, we can support them by maximising discovery and continuing to highlight resources which support decolonisation. We already have several reading lists and two collections that focus on celebrating diversity. In terms of cataloguing, Kat recommends the documentary, ‘Change the Subject’, which explores the removal of anti-immigrant language from Library of Congress Subject Headings. So, whilst we can’t curate module reading lists on behalf of academics, we can continue to support discoverability and promote the diverse titles which we already stock in our collection. 

Another way we can help is by providing academics with easy access to resources that consider how to begin decolonising and diversifying research and teaching. Sarah explained that Aston University has created a LibGuide about the project which includes a list of helpful resources. It acts as a ‘toolkit’ to promote the strategy and show academics how they can begin to decolonise the learning materials that they recommend to students. The consensus in the discussion was that if we are unable to choose the texts that academics are recommending on their reading lists then we must provide information about the project and how academics can incorporate it into their teaching.

The webinar was very informative, and it was great to hear how other Universities are using their reading lists to support the decolonisation of education. It also helped me understand how important it is for our students to be able to see themselves and their culture represented in our collection. Information should not be available from only one point of view. We need to do our best as Library staff to ensure that students can access texts which highlight their own voices.  

 

The recording of the webinar is available to watch here.

 

Beth Houlis
Reading Lists Assistant