An interview with Jess Crilly, Associate Director Content and Discovery at University of the Arts (by Rowan Williamson)
UAL has done extensive work on decolonising the Collections over the last couple of years. Hand in hand with our efforts to decolonise our collections, is our work to support the University to decolonise the curriculum. Last year this culminated in a series of events and exhibitions in partnership with the University ‘Decolonising the Arts Curriculum’ zine that toured our six UAL libraries throughout the year. Whilst our physical spaces were all engaged in promoting this work and showcasing the breadth and depth of our collections to support decolonisation, the challenge was how to create a digital presence and that did the same. Jess Crilly Associate Director for Content and Discovery has led the way in developing our approach, and describes some of the tools used below.
“At UAL we are using various digital tools to support the promotion of resources in relation to ongoing work on decolonising collections. Padlet has emerged as a really useful tool in this context, for sharing resources in a rapid, visual, interactive and collaborative way bypassing some of the constraints of other institutional platforms. Padlet is also being used in the sector for collaboration between libraries, sharing information and practices, and disseminating conference presentations. An example of a co-created resource list that formed part of the from London College of Fashion library: LCF Library decolonisation Padlet
Online zines are a good way of disseminating counter hegemonic narratives, and at UAL we have now produced the second Decolonising the arts curriculum: perspectives on higher education zine, an open collaboration between staff and students, which includes many reflections on the role of the library and archive in decolonisation initiatives.*
Collaborating on this work at UAL has also led to more promotion of online resources and media, including Spotify, Box of Broadcasts for sharing playlists of films and TV programmes, film screenings, we’ve also seen great examples from other libraries who have created YouTube playlists.
The library’s role is also about rebalancing bias and under-representation in online resources and platforms, for example the under-representation of women and people of colour on Wikipedia – encouraging students to create and contribute as well as consume information, including through collaboration with organisations working in this space, such as Art & Feminism.”
Discussions around ways of promoting resources surface some interesting philosophical debates. If the ultimate aim is to embed practices and ways of thinking about inclusive resources into everyday work. then how does creating standalone guides, Padlets and playlists fit in with embedding inclusivity? If we are truly inclusive, are these tools the best way to present these resources in a way that helps academics and students to find key resources that support their own efforts to decolonise and broaden their research, their reading lists and their sources or should it be integrated in our subject guides and catalogues?
“Decolonisation is a complex and contested issue, some of the work described above has been about the promotion and sharing of resources, the digital equivalent of the library display, but our concern now is with mainstreaming activity and collaborating to make more structural change. Within the university an example is integrating our work further with initiatives like the Academic Enhancement Model, and in the library addressing bias in our core systems, including classification and metadata. We don’t use a Reading List Management System at UAL, as the reading list, though very important, isn’t the main driver for collection building and the university has mainly enquiry led pedagogies so we don’t have collections data in that context, but are analysing reading lists through a Liberate the Curriculum project, with librarians, students and academics working together to review and reimagine reading lists. We are investigating mapping data from the library catalogue, and visualisation through infographics, to get a clearer picture of characteristics of our collections, such as place of publication, as many other libraries are also exploring.
So we looking for ways to use digital tools, beyond simply sharing resources and ideas, examining library systems to better “see” and understand our collections in the context of our colonial legacies, and hopefully to plot changes in our collections over time.”
*Zine 2 is a production of Arts Student Union, and UAL Teaching Learning & Employability Exchange. Collated and curated by Rahul Patel with additional support from Annie-Marie Akussah, Anita Israel, Hansika Jethnani, Zina Monteiro and Clare Warner.
Jess Crilly is Associate Director for content and discovery at UAL. She has published and presented extensively on this work. You can read more about her work on decolonising the collections here.
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