When a parent asked if I could contribute some booklists to a weekend cultural fair she was planning, I was thrilled. The event offered an excellent opportunity to further the library’s promotion of reading culture at the school, as well as to share our dedication to building a diverse collection. In addition, it provided motivation to review and reflect on our previous collection development efforts. As I’m passionate about building a diverse collection, I decided to go overboard, knowing I could use the results in future aspects of my work. I focused on two things: 1. Our vision of having mirror, window, and sliding glass door books, as described by Rudine Bishop Sims. 2: Avoiding a “single story” collection, in which, for example, we only had Jewish books about the Holocaust, or Native American books about the frontier.
In the end, I brought the following lists, items, and links to the fair:
- Printed articles about mirrors/windows/sliding glass doors, and the “single story.”
- A list of DEI books for parents and families, compiled with the help of the AISL Listserv and our Director of Diversity.
- Reports of our Middle School fiction diversity audit in 2021, our YA fiction diversity audit in 2022, and our eBook diversity audit in 2024.
- Two poster-sized grids, one for middle school fiction and one for upper school fiction. These featured diversity on one axis and genre on the other. I filled the grids with covers of relevant books from our collections, either print or eBooks. I felt proud that out of about 162 books, only three did we not own. I wanted to demonstrate that if you wanted a fantasy book with Native American characters, we had it. If you wanted a horror book with characters with disabilities, we had it. I realize that the categories are broad strokes, and you could get more and more granular, just as with a diversity audit. In addition, what if you wanted a science fiction book featuring a Black character with a disability? So the grid is not perfect, but it was a start to represent what we value in building our collection.

- Double-sided printouts of the grids with only the titles and authors.
- A LibGuide featuring all of the books in tabbed boxes, with summaries and links to the eBook if we had it. I created boxes organized by diversity and by genre. The LibGuide also included the DEI list for parents and families, and other sources of diverse booklists.

- Bookmarks created by my colleague with a QR code to the LibGuide.
- A cart with thirty middle school and thirty upper school books, plus a scanner so I could check out books at the event.
I ferried many of the items to our Campus Center on the Friday before, including the cart of books, my easel with the two grids, and the booklists. On Saturday, I arrived early with the parents who were setting up. They assembled a cornucopia of tables representing various cultures, including a ton of delicious-smelling food! The event itself was lively (and tasty!), and I did get on the “stage” to present a one-minute explanation of what I’d brought. Though I didn’t get a lot of attention, I talked to a number of people and checked out a few books. I now have the grids posted in the library, and hope my work will be featured in one of our weekly parent newsletters. I really enjoyed the opportunity to consider the diversity of our collection, and look forward to using what I’ve learned to further build a collection that will best serve our students.
