As part of the UCF Libraries’ enthusiastic support of maintaining an inclusive space in the UCF community, we routinely offer a variety of workshops and activities throughout the year. A goal of the Libraries is to ensure that every Knight feels like UCF welcomes them with open arms. The programs offered by the library help UCF community members from various cultures and perspectives know that we see and value their contributions, as well as provide information to community members who might not have previously been exposed to those cultures or perspectives.
The tabbed sections above describe some of the Libraries’ initiatives related to fostering a sense of inclusion and respect through our collections, spaces, and online presence; increasing exposure to diverse perspectives, ideas, and backgrounds; and removing barriers to information resources, services, facilities, and technology.
Related documents and videos can also be found in STARS, the Libraries’ digital repository on the UCF Libraries’ Education, Diversity and Inclusion page.
UCF librarians recognized that locating books that mirror the diverse backgrounds of today’s families can be a difficult task. The Diverse Families Bookshelf was born to address this deficit. The Diverse Families Bookshelf is a comprehensive bibliography and corresponding website that reflects the growing diversity of families in the United States. Each book in the database has been read and evaluated for diversity not only based upon the words, but also the vital message within the illustrations.
Work coming from this effort includes School of Teacher Education students who write lessons plans to accompany books within the database, KnightEd Talks devoted to finding children’s literature that promotes diversity and inclusion, and a diversity audit of the CMC picture book collection and a conscious effort to acquire materials that promote diversity and inclusion to fill gaps in that collection.
Speak Your Truth: A Queer History of UCF is an archival project exploring the history of the queer experience at the University of Central Florida. LGBTQIA+ Students, faculty, staff, and alumni are asked to share their experiences at UCF to help establish a primary sourced digital repository housed in STARS that will be available to scholars. Planned additions to the repository include histories of student LGBTQIA+ clubs, LGBTQ+ Services, and the Pride Faculty and Staff Association (PFSA).
As a library, the first thing we think of during a crisis is what we can do to help. Our skills tend more toward quiet support and book suggestions. With that in mind, we have compiled a list of readings to provide information about current discussions on racial inequity in the U.S., historical context for those inequities, and resources on having conversations about race and discrimination.
UCF Libraries Readings on Race: https://guides.ucf.edu/readingsonrace
Diversity makes us smarter – and better.
The Libraries consciously collects books, videos, journals, primary sources and electronic databases that reflect cultural, ethnic, and gender diversity, and with international scope. For example:
Special Collections’ holdings include materials related to the experiences of Black people in America. There also are materials documenting women’s history, such as the “Judith and Warren Kaplan Collection, Women’s and Gender Studies” collection. Several collections document the work of women artists including the “Joy Postle Papers, 1910-2015” and the “Susan King and Paradise Collection, 1908-2009.” Complementing Special Collections is University Archives, which holds publications, records, photographs and other materials on the University of Central Florida from its beginnings in 1963 to the present. Among its collections are documents and memorabilia of events held at UCF in remembrance of the Pulse Nightclub shooting, the Women’s Club Papers, The Black Faculty and Staff Association Records, the Judaic Studies Program: Distinguished Lecturers Series Records, Equal Opportunity Office Records, and the Brown, Black, and White Collection commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Brown vs. Board of Education.
It should come as no surprise that having access to assigned course materials from day one is an important component of student success. Many UCF students find the cost of textbooks and other course materials a barrier, creating an equity gap between students with the financial means to purchase course materials and those who do not. Further, the faces and voices in mainstream textbooks may not reflect or adequately represent cultures and perspectives of UCF’s diverse student population.
To that end, UCF Libraries offers multiple options for faculty interested in lowering the cost of textbooks and/or in providing course materials that provide multiple perspectives. UCF Libraries has a dedicated Textbook Affordability librarian who has tracked almost 400 classes using open or library-sourced materials. To date, UCF faculty have reached over 20,000 students, potentially saving them over $2,000,000. Note that potential savings are calculated as cost of a new book by number of course enrollments.
Along the same lines as equitable access to course materials is access to open journal articles, monographs, and research data. By definition, Open Access materials are free of cost or other barriers and open to all. UCF Libraries has a dedicated Scholarly Communication Librarian who advocates for OA publishing and provides workshops and programming for the UCF community on this and other topics. STARS, UCF’s institutional repository, is a cloud-based platform that hosts open scholarly artifacts that researchers and students around the globe can freely access.
The Libraries offers a variety of research guides with resources and information on EDI-related topics. Guides range from Speak Your Truth: A Queer History of UCF, an archival project exploring the history of the queer experience at the University of Central Florida (with LGBTQ+ Services and Office of Diversity & Inclusion), to Equal Pay Day programming and special events and a Reading Lists guide.
Librarians serve as engagement liaisons to targeted student groups and as faculty advisors and mentors. While current engagement assignments provide outreach and support to international, FYE, transfer, HIM, and graduate students, additional assignments will be made – as staffing allows – to historically underserved or underrepresented students. Librarians have served as President and Interim President of UCF Pride LGBTQ+ Faculty and Staff Association and as mentors with UCF’s LGBTQ+ Services. Another librarian currently serves as faculty advisor to the Filipino Student Association and mentors entering Filipino students on an on-going basis.
The John C. Hitt Library renovation also provides an opportunity to create more inviting and accessible space. An “accessibility audit” was conducted to inform renovation configurations and furniture, and a gender-neutral restroom and family rest room are planned for the library renovation. UCF Libraries has a dedicated Accessibility librarian, who collaborates with Student Accessibility Services to ensure that our services and resources are accessible to all patrons. In addition to ensuring that library spaces, materials, and equipment are available for those with physical challenges, students with learning and attention disorders have access to literacy software on every computer, a variety of private study areas on a quiet floor, and many library materials in multiple formats (e.g., captioned streaming videos and ebooks that can be read aloud and highlighted).
In collaboration with campus units (such as the Office of Diversity and Inclusion) and academic departments and faculty, UCF Libraries provides a robust slate of EDI-related programming throughout the year. A selection of programs from the past three years follows.
Diversity Week at UCF Libraries is a series of events and films around a yearly theme promoted by the UCF Office of Diversity and Inclusion (ODI). Many Libraries events are hosted in collaboration with ODI. Themes have included Changing the Narrative (2021), Stronger Together: Unified! Connected! Family! (2020), Empowering Equity (2019), A New Day Dawns (2018), and Transform and Inspire Inclusion (2017).
The Hitt Library also hosts monthly thematic displays highlighting resources related to identified topics. The displays are promoted on social media and have been profiled in university and local media outlets.
View the archive of monthly Featured Bookshelf posts
May is Asian Pacific American Heritage Month – a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Books on display at the main floor of John C. Hitt Library include books that received honors from various book award bodies and written by Asian/Pacific American writers. Books on display include: The Sympathizer: A Novel […]
Join UCF Libraries and Kimberly Wilmot Voss, Nicholson School of Communication, for a Women’s History Month Author Talk titled “Florida Fashions in the 1950s and 1960s” on Friday, March 25, 2022! For decades, most metropolitan newspapers had fashion editors in their women’s pages and some of the best of these journalists were in Florida. Areas […]
Join UCF Libraries as we celebrate diverse voices in the Knight community. A series of events, virtual and in-person, are being offered during the month of October 2021. Register to attend with the links in the event titles. Diversity in Comics – virtual discussion October 12, 2:00-3:00pm Join us as we review various forms of comics and […]
In honor of Pride Month, UCF Library faculty and staff suggested books from the UCF collection that represent a wide array of queer authors and characters.
Lily Dubach started as a Student Assistant in the Acquisitions Department in 2014, then held part-time roles in other departments, including as Adjunct Librarian for the Office of Scholarly Communication before joining us full time as the Connect Librarian supporting the Valencia West Campus. She has a Bachelor of Science from UCF and a Master […]
Welcome to Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! It has been a difficult 14 months for the world, but our Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) brothers and sisters have faced even more struggles. From small harassments to intense acts of violence, the AAPI community has borne the brunt of American fears and grief relating to the […]
For further information about diversity initiatives at UCF Libraries, please contact Kristine Shrauger.
For more detailed information about UCF Libraries EDI-related activities, please see our UCF Libraries EDI-related Initiatives 2019 Report in STARS.