Document Type
Presentation
Date of Original Version
6-4-2021
Abstract
In the early 1990s, Dr. Rudine Sims Bishop described books as windows that act either as sliding glass doors allowing readers to step into new worlds or as mirrors reflecting readers’ own perspectives and experiences. This presentation highlights the importance of offering both types of books to young readers and shares tools and resources that librarians can use to build more diverse collections capable of meeting the needs of the community. Determining how representative a collection is can be a daunting, time-intensive, and challenging task. This presentation endeavors to make that task more manageable by sharing the presenters’ experiences in leveraging tools and resources like the Diverse BookFinder Collection Analysis Tool (CAT) and the University of Wisconsin--Madison’s Cooperative Children’s Book Center to evaluate diverse representation in a children’s picture book collection. The presenters also share a tool they developed to analyze the types of stories being told about characters who are part of the LGBTQIA+ community. This work demonstrates the value of pairing freely-available online tools and resources with further content analysis to provide a more comprehensive understanding of diverse representation within children’s book collections, which allows librarians to engage in more effective future collection development.
Recommended Citation
Vaandering, A.G., & Rosenzweig, J. (2021, June 4). Who do you see?: Representing diverse communities through inclusive children’s book collections [Conference session]. Rhode Island Library Association Conference, online.