Antiracism and Diversity in the Information Professions

3 credits · Graduate

Examines discourses, practices, and understandings of antiracism and ‘diversity’ (and related notions) past demographics or other visible characteristics. Emphasis will be on cultivating a values-based diversity mindset, along with a critical reflection on the choices and values embedded in the design and use of information, its institutions, and its technologies; how these might be translated across different sectors (e.g., libraries, archives, museums, networked organizations, professional associations, and major international organizations active in this area), and across different cultural contexts. Examples of issues addressed include: diversity of professional roles, practices, communities served; antiracist approaches to cataloguing and metadata capture; diversity and antiracist considerations in preservation and digitization; diversity in the workforce; diversity as intellectual freedom; diversity as engine of competitiveness.