About the task force
Charge
The UC Berkeley Library Task Force on Racial Justice was created to develop a plan of action to address racism and racial justice within our workplace, in Library spaces, and in our support of the external communities we serve. While racism and discrimination affect many people and communities, this Task Force will focus initially on policies and activities that address injustice against people of color. The Task Force is charged by the University Librarian and the Library Cabinet.
The Task Force will develop specific, actionable recommendations that fit within the campus’s operating principles and the Library’s mission, while advancing racial justice. Toward that end, the Task Force will develop a set of preliminary recommendations within the first three months and propose a plan that outlines additional deliverables for the remainder of the Task Force’s one-year term.
Report
In spring 2020, the Task Force presented an initial report to Library Cabinet. This briefing includes a list of proposed recommendations and actionable strategies for improving the ways in which racism and discrimination can be addressed within the campus library system.
Membership
A call to volunteer to participate in the Task Force was shared with all Library staff. From this list of volunteers, Library employees were selected in an effort to establish a group that was both racially and ethnically diverse and represented the Library’s various job classifications. In addition, a faculty member served on the Task Force.
Statement on racial justice
For too long, we’ve been part of the problem. Now let’s be part of the solution.
Seven out of nine members of the UC Berkeley Library’s executive leadership team are white. Reflecting a history of colonization, the Library’s collections have too often overlooked perspectives of BIPOC or confined them to the margins. Even our physical spaces are reminders of a legacy of oppression, sitting on the territory of Huichin, the unceded ancestral land of the Chochenyo Ohlone.
In many ways, the Library has long strived to be a champion for all — from pioneering a scanning service that creates accessible versions of books to collecting in more than 400 languages to serving as an international leader in the fight for free, immediate access to research.
But in other ways, we’ve fallen short.
For far too long, we have been bystanders when we could have been fighting for change. This is not to say that we have done nothing: Social justice, equal rights, and equal treatment for all have been bedrock principles of the Library as we fulfill our public mission. But we are not going to pretend that we have done nearly enough. Implicit bias ripples throughout our organization, and we can do better to fulfill our promise of inclusivity in how we collect, who we employ, and how we interact with one another.