Decentering Whiteness in Libraries

Andrea Jamison is assistant professor of school librarianship at Illinois State University. She has more than 17 years of experience working in schools and libraries. She speaks internationally on issues related to creating inclusive learning spaces for youth and the interplay of race, power, and privilege in children’s books. Her current research involves examining equity issues in library services and the role that libraries play in either perpetuating or mitigating systems of inequity. Andrea Jamison’s recent dissertation, “The Train the Never Left the Station: Ananalysis of how the collection development policies of academic libraries address diversity,” utilized a content analysis in order to assess manifest messages of diversity in policies. Through this study, Andrea Jamison identified six types of collection development policies utilized in some libraries and was able to develop a checklist for assessing diversity in policies. Professor Jamison received her Master of Teaching from Concordia University and both her Master of Library Science degree and PhD in Information Studies from Dominican University School of Library and Information Science in River Forest, Illinois. Professor Jamison is actively involved with the American Library Association (ALA). In 2018, she chaired the working group responsible for updating ALA’s Interpretation of the Bill of Rights for Diverse Library Collection. In 2020, she published an article in Knowledge Quest on information freedom and its implication for supporting diverse communities. Currently, she serves as chair for ALA's Ethnic & Multicultural Information Exchange Roundtable which promotes multiculturalism in library services.