The American Library Association’s 1982 statement on Diversity in Collection Development reminds librarians of our professional responsibility “to select and support the access to materials on all subjects that meet, as closely as possible, the needs, interests, and abilities of all persons in the community the library serves. This includes materials that reflect political, economic, religious, social, minority, and sexual issues.” The William H. Hannon (WHH) Library’s vision statementaffirms that the library views itself as Bridge, Gateway, Agora, and Enterprise. To ensure that our materials collection aligns with our institutional vision and meets the research needs of our diverse campus population, the project team proposed an assessment of our electronic collection through the lens of diversity. The assessment was to determine if the library’s online databases (most often the first point of research consultation for our students and faculty) are adequately “bridging disciplines” (Bridge) and “representing diverse topics and perspectives” (Gateway). What the team learns will inform the library collection strategy, to ensure that it builds collections that deliberately and positively contribute to an inclusive campus climate. [1] http://library.lmu.edu/aboutthelibrary/libraryvisionmission/

The William H. Hannon Library at Loyola Marymount University (LMU) in Los Angeles, California, held the first People of Color in Library and Information Science (POC in LIS) Summit on July 13, 2018. The summit was a collaborative planning effort by LMU librarians to create a productive and brave space for POC, especially women and marginalized identities, working in the information sector. The POC in LIS Summit invited participants to challenge their roles as information workers and acknowledge that dominant narratives may be disrupted.

With the move towards both critical information literacy and community-centered archives, cultural heritage and information professionals have been called to further interrogate our role as collectors and catalogers of materials. We know that the preservation and description of objects, records, and ephemera ascribe historical meaning, are culturally bound, and impact understanding beyond our lifetime. In this heightened time of social injustice, Black librarians, archivists, and curators are collaborating with community and organizing groups to select and preserve materials related to uprisings in real-time. However, there is a disconnect from the records and items selected for the archives and materials valued by the organizers themselves. There is also a lack of published texts centering the approaches and materials of Black people organizing for their own communities as a part of the archival record with few exceptions. Knowing there is power in the archives, there must be careful consideration to the prioritization and representation of Black communities in their own words. In the following conversations, we thought critically about the provenance and authority of records found on the internet and how archivists should consider materials created by organizers and those created by the community at large. We facilitated three interviews with activists and organizers whose work focuses on the liberation of Black lives globally to both frame and interrogate current archival practices. These interviews explored our archival approach, specifically centering the narratives of the people on the ground. Through these conversations, we discussed the state of organizing and creating digital content as well as how cultural heritage professionals should prioritize the histories of various movements for Black life globally. The interviewees included activists and organizers from the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party (1968-1970s), Black Nashville Assembly, and formerly of Black Lives Matter (2013-present), and End SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) movement (2020-present) in Nigeria. In shaping this conversation, we considered these key questions:  What objects speak to your “work”? What content do you think will help future generations understand past and present movements around Black life? How can cultural heritage professionals determine what is created by BLM, BPP, etc. versus what is contributed by the community-at-large? What does Black liberation look like to you? This article outlines and reimagines archival work as community-based, highly collaborative, and iterative for professionals outside of Black social and political movements. With a focus on intentionality around the communities impacted, individuals involved, and the movements at large, we framed what archival materials are important to Black organizers of our time. With their insight, cultural heritage and archival professionals can create deliberate processes to get direct feedback from the creators themselves for the archives. Overall, this article aims to introduce ways of thinking to decentralize power in archival collections and provide agency to organizers through their own historical record. Pre-print first published online 8/5/2022

No abstract