Furman University has designed its Strategic Diversity Plan framework to facilitate the integration of diversity, equity, and inclusion into functions and activities of its communities. In response to Furman’s initiatives to address inequities across our underrepresented and underserved communities, the Furman University Libraries (FUL) has formed a task force to strategize a plan and implement DEI policies, practices, and programming. FUL has published a Statement on Racism and Violence3 and is now in the process of creating its “Furman University Libraries Strategic Plan”.

Our position, both as Special Collections and Archives and the Digital Collections Center, is to support this growing institutional commitment to repair historical harms and narratives through collections that promote a shared history and a shared remembrance of the past. This audit is one of the many actions we are taking to continue embracing inclusive excellence beliefs and values. Through this assessment, we can further remove obstacles to access and use of our digital collections, promote meaningful dialogues that inform our descriptive practices, make visible and share our complex (and oftentimes, silent) experiences, and foster a sense of intergenerational justice.

These areas can help us identify a variety of lexicon categories and maintain a focused approach to planning our audit. Groupings are broad in nature, meaning, that the concepts within each realm are not meant to be mutually inclusive or exclusive. Once recommendations made by the audit team are presented and approved, we can make better decisions on how to engage in “conscious editing” of records that were reviewed and flagged during this first phase.

1. Punzalan, R. L., & Caswell, M. (2016). Critical directions for archival approaches to social justice. The Library Quarterly, 86(1), 25-42.

Furman is a private liberal arts institution located in Greenville, South Carolina, and it represents the oldest private higher education institution in South Carolina. It enrolls approximately 2,400 undergraduate students and 200 graduate students (need to confirm latest figures), representing 48 states and 22 foreign countries (need to confirm latest figures). In terms of its student body, Furman is a predominantly White Non-Hispanic, Christian institution, with a traditional aged (18- 22) population made up of 60% females, and 73% coming from out of state.

As archival and library professionals, we will conduct this audit with the following understandings and assumptions:

• we recognize that there is a legacy of structural racism—and other systems of power, such as heteronormativity, misogyny, sexism, and ableism—that has permeated out society, institutions, and professional practices
• we actively seek ways to identify and work through our biases to help dismantle racism at the structural, institutional, interpersonal, and individual levels
• we need to reconceptualize traditional archival concepts (e.g., neutrality, provenance, discovery, record, evidence)
• we are accountable for the description of materials we collect and make accessible to the public
• we believe the public is accountable for providing suggestions on archival descriptions we can improve upon
• we understand the importance of educating ourselves and others
• we must continually think of new outreach and advocacy approaches to foment a legacy of trust around our archives
• we anticipate feelings of discomfort, which should not let that compromise the accuracy of our descriptions
• We acknowledge that language is powerful and inseparable from how we view and engage with our society
• we acknowledge that archival description, just like language, is an iterative and imperfect process.
• advancing diversity, equity, and inclusiveness requires participatory and collaborative efforts
• our policies, procedures, and practices will continue evolving as we receive feedback and suggestions for improvement from our stakeholders