Diversity Audits are not a new phenomenon for libraries. While many public and school libraries have taken these projects with varying levels of success; academic libraries, especially medium and large-sized academic libraries have been hesitant to take on these types of projects or have done so with a limited approach. Many medium and large academic libraries approach diversity audits and focus on a specific area of their collection since large-scale projects of this nature can be time-consuming and unmanageable. Even when an administration supports Diversity Audits, projects such as this can be daunting and/or given low priority as academic libraries see declining budgets and limited staff available to perform these types of operations. This presentation will focus on one unconventional approach taken as an ongoing pilot diversity audit and a shelf space review project in a large midwestern urban academic library. With limited resources, this method collected and evaluated five years of DEIA and Social Justice selections and acquisitions data for the library’s general collection, re-envisioning a collection development policy, and shelf review study with a sense toward maximizing current and future space efficiency.
