Campus
I AMplify
The Library is running this project to bring together and organise initiatives which aim to lift the voices of marginalised peoples and communities in our library and in our curricula.
Can you see people like you in the library resources or in your curriculum? Do you only see people like you or read voices like yours? Do you teach by drawing from a range of voices?
I AMplify is a project to actively address how diversity and inclusion does (and does not) manifest itself in our Library collections, and subsequently in our reading lists and curricula. We:
- Ask who is and is not represented.
- Consider why this is the case and how it operates as a function of marginalisation.
- Act to bring those voices into the spaces we occupy.
I AMplify is for everyone - staff and students. It acknowledges the Library's necessary role in providing staff and students with some of the means to engage in diversity work.
For everyone
The project focuses on:
- Integrating with and leading on wider University celebrations of diversity and inclusion by developing our collections as such, and improving the visibility of the resources from this.
- Providing infrastructure to surface and highlight marginalised voices which speak both of themselves and their communities, and which speak of the subject and knowledge disciplines they write about.
For staff
The project focuses on:
- Developing ways to support teaching staff to find, access, use and incorporate resources produced by and written about marginalised voices in their teaching.
For students
The project focuses on:
- Developing barrier-free ways for students to ask for resources which amplify marginalised voices, and secure the financial means to provide these.
I AMplify is a starting point for considering how social justice plays into the work of the University, what inclusion means for us, and the first steps in conversations and actions about the decolonisation of higher education.
The Library, as an institution, is not immune from these conversations and actions, and I AMplify aims to drive the Library forward in its role as a place of information, knowledge, discovery, teaching and learning.
The Library is not solely responsible for this work - we believe it is a shared process between the Library, academics, professional services and students - but it is up to us to provide the means through which information diversity work can occur.
Community of Practice: Information in the curriculum blog I AMplify resource lists
