DEI Resource Display

Banned Books Awareness Week is Oct. 1- Oct. 7, 2023.

Banned Books Week is an annual event bringing public awareness of censorship issues and celebrating the freedom to read. Our display spotlights current and historical attempts to censor books in libraries and schools because of the opinions expressed or the language used within them. While books have been and continue to be banned, in a majority of cases, the books have remained available. This happens only thanks to the efforts of librarians, teachers, students, and community members who stand up and speak out for the freedom to read.

Previous Displays

Summer 2023: LGBTQA+ Pride Month is currently celebrated each year in the month of June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan. EWU Libraries offered a collection of titles that showcase the triumphs and raise awareness of the struggles of the LGBTQA+ community.
May 2023: Religion is one of the most powerful forces shaping our human experience. Learning about various forms of religious experience enables us to deepen our understanding of ourselves and others, and gain perspective of events throughout the world and in our communities.
Mar./Apr. 2023: Featured materials about implicit bias, microaggressions, and stereotyping. Biases and threats, encompassing both favorable and unfavorable assessments, often happen without an individual’s awareness or intention.
Feb. 2023: Poverty is one of the most pervasive and persistent problems in society. The official national poverty rate in 2021 was 11.6 percent, with 37.9 million Americans in poverty. Our February’s display was designed to draw attention to causes, histories and stories of poverty throughout the nation.
Jan. 2023/Dec. 2022: The UN declared December 3rd as the International Day of Persons with Disabilities. This display featured collected resources and materials raising awareness of situations faced by people with disabilities and chronic health conditions.

—

About

The EWU Libraries and Learning Commons is committed to providing and supporting a welcoming, safe and inclusive environment for all members of our diverse campus community. Our commitment reflects the long-standing pledge to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) within the library profession and incorporates the DEI goals of the EWU Strategic Plan.

DEI in the library is about recognizing all members of our campus community, realizing that each individual is unique.

In order to better promote DEI materials and resources in the library collection that help build a foundation for greater understanding in the community, we have created a new, highly visible and accessible topic area in the JFK Lobby, adjacent to the New Books section. While we will continue to feature multicultural resource displays in the central lobby, this permanent DEI location will highlight resources on specific DEI topics and themes that are timely and impactful, in a monthly rotation.

This is a collaborative effort among library faculty and staff, library student workers and campus partners.

Display themes will be generated through shared discussion and campus collaboration, with input from library student workers.

For more information on this initiative, please contact Qing Stellwagen, Associate Professor, Librarian of Diversity and Inclusion Studies, (qstellwagen@ewu.edu).

Our Commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion