Decolonisation and the Library: Home

Need support or advice? 

Are you a student trying to access more diverse reading material related to your subject? Are you a member of staff trying to embed decolonial material in your modules? Can't find the help you need on this guide? Contact your Research and Academic Support Librarian, at library@warwick.ac.uk. 

Subject Headings and Search Terms

Our work to decolonise the Library is not limited to acquiring diverse and decolonial materials for you to read. We are also seeking to improve how we organise materials and how you find them. The Library's Collections Management and Discovery team recently conducted a review of subject terms which may be considered to consist of outdated or offensive terminology and we are currently reviewing a plan on how to update them. The Library uses Library of Congress Subject Headings, index terms -- tags which associate books or articles with particular terminology, and which allow you to search for them -- that are applied to every item we hold, which are derived from a controlled vocabulary which is used in libraries across the world to provide a consistent and standardised approach to organising and searching for resources. As this is a controlled vocabulary, we are not able to insert new terms of change terms using our own terminology. We are, however, able to update subject terms for which there is a more current or appropriate alternative within the controlled vocabulary. We are particularly focusing on class marks and subject headings relating to race and discrimination, and our intention is that you should not need to use problematic or discriminatory language when searching for material. A good overview of the concerns driving this work can be found in the OCLC's research report Reimagining Descriptive Workflows: A Community-informed Agenda for Reparative and Inclusive Descriptive Practice.

We acknowledge that there are many different ways that the term 'decolonisation' and the notion of 'decolonising the curriculum' can be understood. The aims of decolonisation movements and initiatives within higher education and the University itself vary. The terminology -- and thus the name of this guide -- is, therefore, imperfect. The goals of both this guide and the broader efforts by staff and students involved in decolonisation efforts within the library are to:

• Surface and promote diverse and decolonial materials that the library already holds so that students are more fully aware of what they have access to
• Acquiring more decolonising and diverse materials in the form of books and other e-resources to greater increase how representative our collections are of the lived experiences of our students and staff 
• Supporting staff members who are engaged in decolonial practice and intend to diversify and decolonise their own curricula, whether through the acquisition of new material or offering support with finding diverse materials
• Embedding an understanding of decolonial practice across the library, and ensuring that this understanding informs decisions on acquisitions of new material

Ultimately, the Library's role is to act as a facilitator of research and study. It facilitates access to knowledge, and we hope that this guide will serve to facilitate access to some lesser-known material we hold. We are also seeking to expand our collections to better reflect the development of disciplines worldwide.

Please note, however, that the Library's work in this area does not include removing material from our existing holdings. The management of our collections, including the removal or replacement of material, occurs as part of routine processes and happens primarily for reasons such as low use (and low rarity), or an edition of a book being superseded. We will often retain low-use materials if they are very rare and not held by many other institutions in the UK. Deaccession or removal to storage happen as part of routine processes and decisions about the removal of print collections is informed by data about usage and rarity, not by the content of the book. Please see the statement on intellectual freedom and censorship here.