Addressing the absence of diverse representation in the fine art practice history and theory library guide bibliography
My proposed intervention is to diversify resources represented in the Fine Art practice history and theory subject guide bibliography (the Bibliography); to meet contemporary student research needs, to uphold the institution’s stated social justice focus, to contribute to addressing awarding gaps evident in CCW Fine Art, and to better reflect diversity in our student and staff body.
Background
For this project I am focusing on race, and class – as experienced by first-generation students. While this focus informs the background, initiation, and reflection, I will not be limiting the outcomes. I hope to use the intervention as a vehicle for inclusion across a breadth of intersectional and under-represented resources. The Bibliography is positioned as a helpful start point for student research, listing recommended resources selected by tutors, lecturers and librarians supporting common research themes. It should be efficient, useful and helpful, particularly for students who may have less confidence with library research, or who may experience other barriers to progress.
I selected race and generational experience of higher education (H.E.) as focus areas based on my teaching experience using the Bibliography with students in 1:1 tutorials. Limitations of the current bibliography are clear, with no listings supporting social justice, community and identity themes (all current academic research expectations), but with various opaque and outdated topics included.
Having identified organisational commitment in the Anti-racism Action Plan, to ‘review existing and new LibGuides to ensure they profile resources which are appropriately diverse’ (UAL, 2021, p.11), not yet met in this instance, lends the project some urgency. Yousefi highlights the necessity to ‘scrutinize our actions and inactions’ in such instances where the ‘object form’ of stated library policy disconnects from the ‘active form’ of what we actually do and don’t do (2017).
Further evidence supports this focus; attainment / awarding dashboard data shows clear awarding gaps for Black and BAME students on CCW fine art courses, including compound effects across first generation BAME students (appendix.1). NSS student survey results show high satisfaction with resources for Camberwell fine art students, indicating that the issue is not with the collection itself (appendix.2). UAL librarians have been purchasing diverse materials for some years now. This evidence gives me confidence that the project is both needed and achievable; libraries hold adequate materials but students need more help identifying and collating them.
Representation of diversity in collections is an established expectation for libraries across disciplines, however many libraries take a shallow approach ‘gather[ing] more works by under-represented groups, but continu[ing] to utilize the same systems’ (Blume and Roylance, 2020). Identity, community, and society are key underpinnings of both art and design education, fostering belonging and understanding (Koo et al., 2024), and practice (Garber, 2004, citing Gablik). Visibility and representation in this context not only supports inclusion, it is a necessary provision for the research journey.
Framework
I am planning to use knowledge I have been working with in the healthcare information sector to scaffold the project; ongoing research exploring Critical Race Theory (CRT) as a framework for collection management (O’Driscoll and Bawden, 2022). CRT frameworks already widely underpin education research and policy (Bradbury, 2020).
As a student, researcher, and librarian who experiences the embedded advantages of being white, and of having had a parent with degree level education, I find CRT helpful in guiding anti-racist and equitable collections work. CRT’s tenets enable exploration and breadth of research more thorough than I could achieve independently, helping me to avoid assumptions and omissions. A table of applicable tenets to support the resources review and listings work has been developed (appendix.3) using core CRT precepts aligned to librarianship (Leung and López-McKnight, 2021).
Administration
A draft list of additional section themes (appendix.4) has been created and shared with key stakeholder colleagues; the fine art academic support librarian at Chelsea, and the dissertations module lead at Camberwell, for feedback. A project plan details the deliverability of the intervention (appendix.5) . Engagement with fine art academic teams for resource recommendations will be initiated over Summer 2025. The plan aims to have some new sections of the Bibliography in place for the coming academic year: art and race, black art histories, trans-national art histories, with others to follow later in the Autumn term.
To keep the Biblography accessible it may be necessary to remove some sections that supported prior contextual studies, and some anachronistic themes. Clearer signposting of the A-Z, a font size increase, and hyperlinks have recently been implemented to improve accessibility. A further improvement of nesting the listings under section titles will be explored, as the current format looks exhaustive and can be over-whelming, however the format limitations of the LibGuide platform the Bibliography sits on are recognised.
Authority
The existing bibliography was put together by past librarians in partnership with fine art academic teams. It has remained static for some years due to changes in staffing and workloads. The librarian role I occupy is hybrid across academic support librarian (including teaching and academic liaison) and collections librarian (with responsibility for resources selection, organisation, promotion and stewardship). I am relatively new to librarianship having had a prior career in retail buying and category management, graduating with a library MSc in 2022 before working in entry-level library roles at UAL and elsewhere. I have foundation level fine art education. In the academic context I feel quite junior in my role.
I feel wary of publicly critiquing past practices or the status-quo, considering my relatively recent qualification and professional experience. However I have undertaken some significant local Camberwell operational and admin change projects. As the PGCert has progressed I am feeling more confident in sharing collections best practice, for example our disaggregated Dewey classification for African art and artists. Discussing servant leadership as a strategy for inclusivity Gotsis and Grimani cite Mor Barak in defining inclusive workplaces as valuing both ‘individual and intergroup differences’ to address ‘multi-level social equality agendas’ (2016). This reflects how I plan to position myself within this project; initiating the review and enacting the administrative and operational side allows me to leverage my external experience and capacity for change, and to invite contributions and subject leadership from those with more librarianship experience, fine art expertise, and first-person experiences of being minoritised.
In addition to reviewing existing course reading lists for recommended resources to add to the Bibliography I will be liaising with other UAL fine art librarians and with academic teams. I will use the CRT framework to evaluate the collated lists, and to build them out where needed – siting authority with author positionality in the context of each theme (Blume and Roylance, 2020).
Reflection on feedback received
Initial feedback about the viability and appetite for the project has been very positive. The dissertations academic lead confirmed that social justice and identity have not been well supported by the current Bibliography, and that diverse materials are missing from key sections; e.g. absence of Black feminists from the feminism section. Additional theme suggestions were proposed with this feedback, and more diverse authors recommended. I felt very encouraged by the suggestions and the feedback that the resource could be made more useful and helpful, supporting both social justice objectives and research needs.
The Chelsea librarian shared an MA fine art Padlet bibliography with a much more contemporary and social justice oriented breadth of themes represented. I incorporated these into the evolving proposed additions. This also prompted me to add a project planning point to request more course reading lists for review, as both a head-start in collating materials, and to minimise confusion for students by providing consistent recommendations. I will plan to retain criticality in reviewing and incorporating these reading lists, referring to the CRT framework.
I had two student tutorial experiences this year that stood out in terms of the absence of research support and representation in the current bibliography. One student was researching artists and art in African diaspora communities, and another was researching a youth subculture in China. The current Bibliography did not support either of these themes, despite both topics seeming relatively core to the UAL student base. I wanted to ask these students for feedback on having not found materials on the bibliography, and on some proposed more helpful sections. I managed to speak to one of the students in person and subsequently emailed a feedback request, but felt unsure this was a good approach. I was concerned the student would feel othered by my direct request, and burdened by the expectation to reply (particularly towards the end of the academic year). The student did not reply, validating this concern. I held off on contacting the other student on this basis, I think it would be better to seek student input when the work has been started, as part of building up the lists.
I also had invaluable feedback from my PGCert peers and tutor. Elements emerging through this process included; introduction of CRT as the framework for selecting resource inclusions to ensure criticality and mitigating against biases and oversights, maximising the accessibility of the Bibliography format through nesting or similar, instantiation of a review process so that the resources does not become static again, review of other universities similar lists where available, and building on student feedback in appropriate and welcome ways, particularly feedback from minoritised and international students.
Moving forward
I am excited to take this project forward and hopeful that I will have at least several of the under-represented themes addressed before the new academic term, to support 2025 dissertation research.
References
Blume, R., Roylance, A. (2020) ‘Decolonization in collection development: Developing an authentic authorship workflow’. The Journal of Academic Librarianship, Vol 6(5).
doi: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.acalib.2020.102175.
Bradbury, A. (2020) ‘A critical race theory framework for education policy analysis: the case of bilingual learners and assessment policy in England’, Race Ethnicity and Education, Vol 23(2), pp. 241-260.
doi: doi.org/10.1080/13613324.2019.1599338.
Garber, E. (2004). ‘Social Justice and Art Education’. Visual Arts Research, Vol 30(2), pp. 4–22. Available at: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20715349 (accessed on 18/07/25).
Gotsis, G. and Grimani, K. (2016), ‘The role of servant leadership in fostering inclusive organizations’. Journal of Management Development, Vol. 35 (8), pp. 985-1010.
doi: doi-org.10.1108/JMD-07-2015-0095.
Koo, A., Lim, K. and Song, B. (2024) ‘Belonging Pedagogy: Revisiting Identity, Culture, and Difference’. Studies in Art Education, Vol 65(1), pp. 63–80.
doi: doi.org/10.1080/00393541.2023.2285206.
Leung, S. Y., & López-McKnight, J. R. (2021). Introduction: This is only the beginning. In Leung, S. Y., & López-McKnight, J. R. (eds.) Knowledge justice: Disrupting library and information studies through critical race theory (pp. 1-41). The MIT Press.
O’Driscoll, G., & Bawden, D. (2022). Health information equity: Rebalancing healthcare collections for racial diversity in UK public service contexts. Education for Information, Vol 38(4), pp. 315-336.
doi: doi.org/10.3233/EFI-220051 .
UAL (2021) UAL anti-racism action plan summary. Available at: https://www.arts.ac.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0032/296537/UAL-Anti-racism-action-plan-summary-2021.pdf (accessed on 18/07/25).
Yousefi, B. (2017). On the disparity between what we say and what we do in libraries. In Lew, S. & Yousefi, B. (eds.), Feminists among us (pp. 107-125). Sacramento, CA: Library Juice. Available at: https://summit.sfu.ca/item/17387 (accessed on 19/07/25).
Appendix 1: UAL awarding rates gap analysis.
Appendix 2: NSS library feedback
Appendix 3: CRT tenets table [WIP]
Appendix 4: Draft list of additional themes
Appendix 5: Project plan