Albert S. Cook Library published its first Anti-Racism Action Plan in 2022, an action that was long overdue and was initially prompted by the uprisings of 2020 and 2021 in response to continued racist police action and violence. This plan was a starting point, and we have chosen to update it to expand the focus of our work to encompass all aspects of Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, Accessibility, and Justice. Anti-Racism remains a central tenet of this work, but it cannot be separated from the intersectional context of issues that must be confronted to ensure a better future for our community, our students, our staff and faculty, and for the world we live in.
Library Leadership and Personnel acknowledge our place in systems of oppression and our responsibility to change all that we can. We acknowledge that harmful cultural norms such as systemic racism are ingrained in higher education and in academic libraries. In Angela Gavin’s 2015 article “Soliciting performance, hiding bias: Whiteness and librarianship,” she says, “librarianship is paralyzed by whiteness” by adhering to white cultural norms, and this stymies true inclusion. This paralysis also keeps libraries, including Cook Library, from fully serving our communities and achieving true and sustainable innovation. Therefore, we commit to moving forward as an actively anti-racist unit within Towson University and the world, and to work towards equitable outcomes for all marginalized groups.
Our strategic plan articulates goals to support diversity-rich learning experiences, programs, services, and collections, to make the library more accessible, and to recruit and retain diverse personnel. This statement works in tandem with our strategic plan to create intentional space for anti-racist work and education for all, to hold our library organization publicly accountable, and to help foster honest and meaningful engagement. We put forth measurable action items to be completed within the next 2-5 years in order to move the library to become a truly transformative organization. We acknowledge that our priorities and capabilities may change over time, but we commit to working towards a more just organization in a flexible but realistic way.
Actions
Moving forward, Cook Library will center anti-racism and other equitable practices to build a culture of accountability, transparency, and support for library personnel, students, and the TU community. We affirm that we are ready to listen and act when our BIPOC students, staff, faculty, alumni, and community encounter racial bias or experience microaggressions. We also affirm that we will work to recognize the experiences of all people across the spectrum of ability, neurodiversity, gender, sexuality, size, age, and cultural background to reduce barriers and increase access. This includes the commitment to holding each other accountable and taking actions to interrupt our own implicit bias. As a community, and with support from leadership, we commit to the following:
Recruitment and Hiring
In 2023, Maryland’s population was 48.3% white, 31.7% Black or African American, 11.5% Hispanic or Latino, 7.1% Asian, and a combined 4% Native, Pacific Islander, or two or more races. Towson University’s student population the same year was roughly representative of the state’s demographics, yet the demographics of the library's faculty and staff has historically skewed, and continues to skew, disproportionately white.
We strive to create an environment where students of all racial backgrounds can find a place and see themselves reflected in the library’s professional staff, and to ensure that library professionals of any race, gender, ability, or sexuality are welcomed, supported and included in our workplace. We are committed to implementing hiring and recruitment practices that allow for equitable opportunity of employment across the board, and we commit to the following actions to improve our current practices:
Commitment 1: Inclusive Recruitment
Goals
- Prioritize the hiring and retention of BIPOC professionals by participating in Search Advocate training and evaluating how whiteness is centered in professionalism and challenging those biased norms in job descriptions, the places jobs are posted, and the internal culture of our institution.
- Create a guidelines checklist for supervisors and Library Administration to reference when authoring position descriptions prior to recruitment by January 2025.
- Update list of recruitment locations by January 2025 to promote to communities including applicants who are neurodiverse or disabled. Create a checklist that can be used to maintain accountability in search processes.
Commitment 2: Equitable and Accessible Hiring Process
Goals
- Ensure that all search committee processes are inclusive. All search committee members for library positions will complete baseline Search Advocate training, and at least one librarian per year will commit to undergo Search Advocate recertification.
- Ensure inclusive interview processes and increase diversity of candidate pools to match the diversity of TU student body.
- Refine interview practices to include all possible candidates regardless of disability and body shape or size. Considerations may include adequate breaks between meetings, clarifying food needs, and confirming non-library travel expectations.
- Develop a process for a volunteer model for search committees while still considering workload and campus requirements for search committee diversity by December 2025.
- Begin tracking percentages on diversity of hiring pools using aggregate data provided by OIIE. Strive for continuous improvement with the goal that diversity of the candidate pools reflects the diversity of our student population.
Progress
- 5 of the 6 search committees gathered in 2024 reviewed Search Advocate training materials (83%). 23 of the 26 total committee members received Search Advocate training or reviewed the Search Advocate module in Blackboard (88%).
- Recruitment guidelines updated by Library Administration at the start of each recruitment. Last updated August 2024.
Staff Retention and Development
Librarianship has historically been a predominantly white field, and even efforts to correct the disparity through increased recruitment are insufficient when librarians and library staff members from minority groups are not supported effectively, which may drive them to leave the field.
We also recognize that different people work best with a variety of supports, and it is necessary to have a culture of respect and flexibility, where individual work preferences and needs are honored. Accommodations should be met without judgment or retaliation, and all individuals should feel supported to do their best work.
Our goal is to create a workplace where people of any background can find a place of belonging and want to stay. To create a culture that is welcoming, inclusive, and affirming, it is important to have widespread awareness of issues and perspectives, cultural humility and competence, and a capacity for hard conversations and willingness for repair. To this end, we commit to the following actions:
Commitment 1: Onboarding
Goals
- Create robust onboarding resources and support for new hires to the library to improve retention.
- Update internal onboarding resources LibGuide by end of Fall 2024 semester
- Develop consistent physical and virtual information including an onboarding curriculum to be shared with new hires by end of Summer 2025
- Develop more robust management of the library fellowship program, including the creation of a steering committee, by Summer 2025
- Publish and compare turnover rates on a yearly basis by summer 2025
Progress
- Re-assigned new Director of Organizational Development to spearhead the program in August 2024. Onboarding development in progress.
- Internal onboarding resources LibGuide developed and updated
Commitment 2: Mentoring
Goals
- Flesh out a sustainable mentoring program for all new hires and existing employees interested in growing specific skill sets in order to improve retention
- Update mentoring documentation and determine best methods for engagement whether in-person, virtual, synchronous, or asynchronous by Summer 2025
- Develop a process for encouraging and training potential volunteer mentors by Summer 2025
- Develop a process for matching new hires to mentors who can advise on mentee goals explicitly by Summer 2025
Progress
- Re-assigned new Director of Organizational Development to spearhead the program in August 2024. Mentoring program development in progress.
Commitment 3: Staff Training
Goals
- Organize DEI training on a yearly basis for all library personnel, including cultural competency training for all library employees. Prioritize yearly training on bystander intervention and supporting users with disabilities including disability etiquette and values as well as functional assistive technology offerings.
- Library managers and supervisors will complete ongoing training on creating safe workplaces and structures for employees outside of white supremacist norms. Training materials designed for new supervisors will be provided.
Progress
- Do Better Be Better – Four-session series of Anti Racism Management Training, Summer/Fall 2022
- Fix Your Climate: A Practical Guide to Reducing Microaggressions, Microbullying, and Bullying in the Academic Workplace – Workbook and discussion, August 2024
- Microaggressions Bystander Intervention training by OIIE, January 2023
- Mental Health First Aid training, May 2023
- Overdose Response Training, November 2024
- DEI training by Just Ideas, LLC, January 2025
- Email reminders and resources regarding bystander intervention are sent out biannually
Commitment 4: Professional Development
Goals
- Explicitly prioritize programs that center anti-racism, challenging and unlearning bias, diversity, equity and inclusion on an ongoing basis.
- Organize events where those who have attended training can share out what they have learned.
Commitment 5: A Culture of Transparency and Communication
Goals
- Explore the efficacy of allowing staff to provide feedback on supervisor performance by 2026.
- Provide a mechanism for library employees to share and compare annual assessment goals for DEIA, and to recommend and provide feedback on trainings hosted by the library.
- Communicate transparently about racist or bias incidents, when possible, and the reporting process in order to swiftly address incidents. Confront incidents of racist speech and actions within our community with invitations to more honest, vulnerable, challenging conversations.
Progress
- Library Assembly established in 2024 to support transparent communications and gathering staff feedback
- Biannual library-wide DEIA goal workshops implemented in 2025
- A number of individuals and departments have piloted 360 reviews in 2023, 2024, and 2025
Teaching and Learning
Towson University is a racially and culturally diverse campus; we have a majority non-white population, and many of our students identify as first-generation. Even more are juggling other responsibilities such as jobs and dependent care.
Our goal is to create learning environments that view students’ customs, cultures, experiences, and perspectives as opportunities to increase academic, professional, and personal success. This would not be limited to just the classroom but include interactions at service points and consultations, in-person and online, formally and informally. To ensure all students have positive and successful learning experiences, we affirm that neither students nor staff or faculty that identify as BIPOC will be burdened to speak on behalf of People of Color in the library or in the library-led classroom. We also commit to the following actions:
Commitment 1: Library Teaching
Goals
- Implement library-wide learning outcomes, including DEIA specific outcomes, to guide instruction and assessment by 2026.
- Research and Instruction will lead the creation of an assessment plan by 2027 in order to regularly assess instruction strategies and activities, including asynchronous materials and how teaching is conducted.
- Schedule opportunities to share out reflections on what inclusive pedagogy looks like in practice to improve instruction.
- Work towards ensuring that all online educational content is ADA Title II compliant by April 2026 by determining workflows and training strategies for all employees.
Commitment 2: Scholarship, Grants, and Projects
Goals
- Make space for BIPOC scholarship and support via programs, exhibits, and spaces by determining funding for and implementing internal action grants for local projects focused on inclusion and anti-racism on a yearly basis. Seek grants from outside sources that support and raise awareness about historically marginalized groups.
Progress
- DEI Action Grants were launched in 2022, providing funding for grants of up to $7,000 for exceptional projects led by library employees or student staff who are working to advance one or more of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) goals in the library strategic plan.
- 2022 – Students Who Agitate: Organizing for Racial, Environmental, and Social Justice (event)
- 2023 – Maryland’s Native Peoples (collection expansion)
- 2023 – Diverse Music Score Collection Agenda (collection expansion)
- 2025 – Diverse Student Art in the Academic Commons (exhibition)
- 2025 – DEIAJ in Environmental Sustainability (research project)
Commitment 3: Programming
Goals
- Host library programming on racism’s effect on information justice and higher education as well as topics that impact the BIPOC community. Invite BIPOC scholars and speakers to share their work.
- Celebrate and highlight historically marginalized community members and campus partners by collaborating with other departments through outreach events. Support staff-faculty-student collaborations and events.
- Ensure that all library social media is accessible. All videos should have cc edited and all images should have quality alt text by April 2026.
Programming
- Hosted 9 BIPOC-focused programs during the 2024–2025 academic year
- Hosted 16 DEI-focused programs that discussed those from traditionally marginalized groups during the 2024–2025 academic year
Commitment 4: Research Help
Goals
- Continually foster knowledge of subject matter, resources, tools, and techniques to facilitate research related to identities, abilities, and cultures. Collaborate to develop internal and/or external resources to support these research needs.
- Build competencies for providing inclusive and effective research help to students, faculty, staff, and community members.
Progress
- LibGuides created to support education on relevant topics, including
Indigenous Research,
De-Normalizing Censorship,
Freedom Summer 1964, and more - Cultural competency training included in all student employee orientation beginning in 2023
Collections and Spaces
The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) mandates that public buildings be adequately accessible to everyone regardless of ability. This officially extends to online spaces as of April 2026 with ADA Title II. However, ADA compliance does not always guarantee access, and many spaces are often inconvenient for, or even hostile to, disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodiverse patrons. Cook Library strives to provide more than the minimum by continually improving the accessibility of our technology, collections, and physical spaces. By collaborating with a variety of users, we hope to create a more informed experience that offers easily browsable stacks, WCAG compliant databases, and diverse collections.
We furthermore commit to ensuring that our collections contain materials and information reflective of the diverse perspectives, identities, and cultural backgrounds present in our population. A representative collection is one where users of all identities and backgrounds can find themselves represented in the books, media, and educational materials provided by the library.
Commitment 1: Accessible Collections and Spaces
Goals
- Make digital and physical collections and services more welcoming and accessible by taking actions that address accessibility barriers in the physical space, by ensuring that instructional materials are ADA Title II compliant, and that vendors are aware of our compliance requirements by April 2026.
- Complete a building accessibility audit by Summer 2025.
- Special Collections and University Archives will continue to make sure that collections are discoverable through multiple mediums.
Progress
- One additional space allocated to accessible technology in 2023
- Building audit started fall 2024
Commitment 2: Diverse and Representative Collections
Goals
- Continually make digital and physical collections and services more welcoming and reflective of our diverse community by conducting collection audits, assessing our cataloging practices to ensure usage of appropriate subject headings and terms, and by prioritizing collection development of inclusive library collections in all liaison/content areas to ensure representation of diverse content, voices, and perspectives.
- Special Collections and University Archives will conduct intentional collection development to ensure a diversity of perspectives are represented within the archives.
Progress
- Collections expanded in the areas of Indigenous fiction and nonfiction and music scores by underrepresented composers.
- ITHAKA S+R DEIA collections assessment started in Spring 2024
- $1500 allocated annually to the DEIA Collection Fund starting in 2023. Used to purchase materials related to diversity, equity, and/or inclusion.
- Collaboration established with Tiger Stripes to incentivize student groups to contribute to the university archives (ongoing)
- Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) continues Unearthing Towson’s History Project (ongoing)
Structural Change
As David James Hudson notes, in recent years, corporations and institutions have shifted toward taking a stand against systemic racism and discrimination, yet they envision “systemic racism” as widespread ignorance and prejudice to be cured through education and consciousness-raising, without acknowledging the material, economic structures that rely on and perpetuate racialized violence, colonization, exploitation, and dispossession. Albert S. Cook Library, as a part of the landscape of higher education in America, relies on these structures of exploitation to exist. If it is to exist in the future, the fundamental way our universities are structured and funded must be transformed.
This includes but is not limited to:
- Directing Cook Library’s financial resources away from vendors, manufacturers, technology subscriptions, and partners with inherently exploitative practices, and towards partners with ethical practices and positive impacts on the community
- Challenging hierarchy, ensuring fair labor practices, and empowering library workers to democratically participate in their workplace and their community
- Lowering the costs of education and access to information and challenging for-profit models that functionally exploit or overburden students, teachers, scholars, and emerging citizens
- Adopting sustainable practices and using university resources in a way consistent with environmental, cultural, and intellectual stewardship
The structural changes needed are deep and extensive, and the actions laid out here are only starting points. In pursuit of these efforts, we commit to the following actions:
Commitment 1: Affordability
Goals
- Commit to eliminating late fees by December 2021.
- Expand textbook reserve program to reduce cost of course materials.
Progress
- Late fees eliminated January 2022
- Textbook reserve program continues to expand; additional shelving for course reserves installed Spring 2024
Commitment 2: Professional Ethics, Privacy, and Data Security
Goals
- Develop local standards, informed by professional ethics, surrounding data security and privacy. Continually advocate for changes to improve the security and privacy for our students, faculty, staff, and community users. Build out the vendor selection process to clarify processes related to AI and data collection specifically.
- Investigate better ways to communicate about 1) personal data security for students on public computers, 2) how thin clients affect security, 3) communicate around technologies, software, programs that we subscribe to and their copyright/data risks, and how students can protect themselves by 2027.
Progress
- Vendor Ethics Taskgroup established and reporting form for privacy concerns completed in Spring 2024
- The vendor selection process has been updated to clarify what information is collected and how long the data is held (in progress)
- A document retention team has been established to ensure private information is protected (2025)
TU’s History and Legacy
While Towson University has been a leader in education since its founding in 1866, its history regarding diversity has not been as progressive. Rather than serving as a model for societal changes to break down institutional inequalities, the school tended to maintain them, often in a bid to maintain good relations with a myriad of stakeholders including state and federal officials. During much of its history, demand for progress from community members as well as outside pressures was met by a lack of initiative on the part of the administration, doing the barest minimum necessary to ensure the institution complied with federal guidelines, and sometimes complete disregard for the need for changes.
Since the 1970s, the campus has gone through periods of transformation, usually in response to student activists, but also due to changes in school leadership. These changes may be small and take time to fully realize, but they have long lasting impacts. We seek to create a place for learning that continues to change in positive ways, and to be receptive to the demands for improvement often voiced by our community. To push our collective work forward and to ensure that our future is brighter than our past, we commit to the following:
Commitment 1: Transparent Stewardship of TU's Current and Past History
Goals
- Be transparent about TU’s history and opportunities for improvement. Make accessible materials that accurately reflect TU’s past and continue to use reparative descriptions.
- Recognize that the future is being built by current knowledge, and that knowledge needs to be broad, representative, and honest about the past and current activities of all community members. Actively work with student groups and partners to document holistic history as it is happening and engage with the past in a way that contextualizes current events.
Progress
- Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA)’s Unearthing Towson’s History Project (ongoing) is an interdisciplinary collaboration that seeks to investigate the history of intersectional diversity at TU. Methods include recording oral histories and digitizing resources to make them accessible to the wider community.
- Integration of TU’s history into instruction programs, collaboration with OIIE’s Dialogue Fellowship program, etc. to ground learning outcomes relating to social justice in our shared history.
- Continued building a collection of Wiki pages that highlight notable moments of TU’s history in an accessible way, written by SCUA staff and students
- Collaboration established with Tiger Stripes to incentivize student groups to contribute to the university archives (ongoing)
Reflection and Assessment
The goal of this plan is not to collect a series of statements and goals, but to create a living document to guide our work and keep us accountable. Where possible, we strive to make goals measurable and concrete. For goals that are not conducive to qualitative assessment, such as those related to ongoing personal and cultural growth, our aim is to provide regular opportunities for reflection and qualitative analysis of what we are doing, what is working, and what is not.
The following are commitments we are taking specifically to bring more awareness and accountability to the work we do. The IDEA Committee will update this plan annually.
Commitment 1: Organizational Equity Audit
Goals
- Conduct regular organizational equity audits every 5–6 years.
Progress
- Equity Audit completed Fall 2023
- Next audit due 2028–2029
Commitment 2: User Experience Assessment
Goals
- Pending IRB review and approval, complete a user experience study by Spring 2026 to assess the experiences of BIPOC students in the library and with library representatives in the classroom and report findings publicly so that we may use them to inform change in our spaces, services and interactions.
Progress
- Project started and IRB approval pending as of spring 2025
Commitment 3: This Statement
Goals
- We are committed to routinely assessing and auditing this statement and its actions to determine if our changes have the intended impact. The Library’s IDEA Committee will prompt all departments to review this statement yearly.
Progress
- Updated April 14, 2022
- Updated June 10, 2025
Those with power and influence over policy must imbue their work with active, anti-racist and inclusive decisions, practices, and policy. We plan to assess our progress regarding these commitments yearly and share updates publicly with the university community. This is an ongoing journey, and one where we will likely misstep. Together, we will create a future where higher education does not prioritize white culture while dismissing the voices and contributions of Black people, Indigenous people and people of color. We will create a learning environment that is open and accessible to all people regardless of ability, age, gender, sexuality, neurodiversity, or cultural background. We will continue to move toward that future through our individual actions, our long-term strategic plans, and every step in between.
Last revised: June 10, 2025