Gould Library is here to partner with you in this work.  Our collections are built to support the curriculum of the college. As you consider diversifying your course readings, please let us know what we can add to our collection to support you!  

Our subject librarians work with academic departments to make the best use of information sources. Contact your liaison to talk about the resources you're looking for.

A Statement from the American Library Association (ALA): 

Collection development should reflect the philosophy inherent in Article I of the Library Bill of Rights: “Books and other library resources should be provided for the interest, information, and enlightenment of all people of the community the library serves. Materials should not be excluded because of the origin, background, or views of those contributing to their creation.” A diverse collection should contain content by and about a wide array of people and cultures to authentically reflect a variety of ideas, information, stories, and experiences.

Decoloniality in research is a context-specific endeavor which involves not only actively unlearning and dismantling dominant Euro-American centric ways of thinking and understanding the world, but also rebuilding and re-worlding forms of knowledge-making that exist outside these dominant epistemic norms (Mignolo, 2017). Working decolonizing the research process relies on, as Appleton puts it, “devalu[ing] hierarchies [and] disinvest[ing] from citational power structures" (Appleton, 2019). Citation metrics and impact privilege items and silence others. We need to recognize that there are other kinds of items other than research or journal articles that are valid. Ascribing value to the peer-reviewed article means devaluing other means of knowledge communication. Decolonial research practice reminds scholars that many assumptions about knowledge, truth and rationality are drawn from literature and practice developed at a particular time and place and through unequal and unjust power and knowledge relations.

This list points to some of our academic databases that have content from underrepresented groups or locations. These databases support diverse areas of studying here at Carleton College. This does not represent the extent of our collections. You may want to browse our full list of databases to find sources in a specific area.