The Committee on South Asian Libraries and Documentation (CONSALD) is committed to building, retaining, and sustaining a diverse, equitable, and inclusive collaborative organization that effectively supports a diverse membership and serves a multiplicity of communities and stakeholders.
CONSALD members acknowledge the worldwide history and ongoing legacy of racism and colonialism, as well as marginalization along the lines of ability, caste, class, ethnicity, race, gender identity, indigeneity, language, nationality, religion, and sexuality, all of which underlie what has been done and what is yet to be done. We strive to redress these legacies and biases, and wish to memorialize and demonstrate our members’ individual and collective commitment to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all spheres of our librarianship and professional lives.
CONSALD expresses its members’ commitment to work towards inclusive practices: individually, through our language, communication, and behavior, as well as organizationally, through our service to the broad field of South Asian Studies; through the shape of the collections we create, coordinate, preserve, and make accessible; through the metadata we create; through our representation of South Asia librarianship in the wider academic context, and through the systems to support it that we develop.
To begin this process, CONSALD members have identified the following actions, among others, as important individual and collective contributions to the expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work:
Drafted and respectfully submitted by the CONSALD Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Subcommittee:
Ellen Ambrosone Todd Michelson-Ambelang
Triveni Kuchi Jef Pierce
Aruna P. Magier (Chair)
Ratified by the CONSALD Executive Board on 3/16/2021.
A longer document providing additional context and actionable advice is forthcoming.
CONSALD members acknowledge the worldwide history and ongoing legacy of racism and colonialism, as well as marginalization along the lines of ability, caste, class, ethnicity, race, gender identity, indigeneity, language, nationality, religion, and sexuality, all of which underlie what has been done and what is yet to be done. We strive to redress these legacies and biases, and wish to memorialize and demonstrate our members’ individual and collective commitment to the principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion in all spheres of our librarianship and professional lives.
CONSALD expresses its members’ commitment to work towards inclusive practices: individually, through our language, communication, and behavior, as well as organizationally, through our service to the broad field of South Asian Studies; through the shape of the collections we create, coordinate, preserve, and make accessible; through the metadata we create; through our representation of South Asia librarianship in the wider academic context, and through the systems to support it that we develop.
To begin this process, CONSALD members have identified the following actions, among others, as important individual and collective contributions to the expansion of diversity, equity, and inclusion in our work:
- promoting the values of DEI and democratization of access of content to users worldwide;
- mentoring our colleagues and actively recruiting candidates for – and supporting professional development of – librarians from diverse and underrepresented populations;
- educating ourselves to recognize and address biases;
- acknowledging librarian community members who have various educational histories;
- serving both our local communities and reaching beyond our geographic areas to help researchers, scholars, and students outside of our own institutions and nations;
- collaborating with other academic associations and professional librarian groups and organizations for shared DEI commitments and action plans;
- striving for DEI in the ways our professional organizations operate and in their nomination and governance structures;
- creating clear paths to CONSALD leadership through structured mentorship programs.
Drafted and respectfully submitted by the CONSALD Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Subcommittee:
Ellen Ambrosone Todd Michelson-Ambelang
Triveni Kuchi Jef Pierce
Aruna P. Magier (Chair)
Ratified by the CONSALD Executive Board on 3/16/2021.
A longer document providing additional context and actionable advice is forthcoming.