Equity Action Plan

The Equity Action plan is intended to address some long-term issues of inequality within our Society and other learned societies in the United States and internationally, and also issues of diversity and inclusion within the practice of bibliography. Issues of inequality have resulted in members of under-represented groups having had fewer opportunities for advancement and support. The scholarship they produce and bibliographical studies of their textual cultures have been overlooked, unpublished or actively discouraged.

The BSA conducts its business on the traditional and ancestral lands and waters of the Lenape People in Lenapehoking, known by settlers as New York City. The Society gathers people together at events across the North and South American continents on the traditional and ancestral lands and waters of Indigenous peoples who were forcibly removed from their lands. The BSA acknowledges the exclusion and erasures of Indigenous peoples in the places where we work and gather.

This plan is intended to provide transparent documentation of actions that the Bibliographical Society of America (BSA) will take to rectify harm done and to achieve defined goals related to diversity, equity, and inclusion within the Society and its sphere of influence.

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• Action Point 1: The development and adoption of policies and procedures aimed at regularizing and supporting the participation of self-identified members of under-represented groups on the PBSA Advisory Board. The Editor of PBSA and the Publication Committee shall establish and document procedures by which vacant positions on the board are filled, the qualifications for appointments to the PBSA Advisory Board, and length of the term served. The procedure should state that if two candidates with comparable professional qualifications are simultaneously under consideration for an appointment to the Advisory board, a candidate’s potential to offer different perspectives to those already serving will be considered and valued. On the whole, the Advisory Board should offer a plurality of voices, perspectives, and experiences. Members from any one gender or race/ethnicity, or any one institutional/vocational affiliation  should not comprise more than 50% + 1 of the members of the PBSA Advisory Board.

• Action point 2: Broadening the coverage of books reviewed to include works that represent a wider array of textual artifacts from diverse authors in English and in other languages.

• Action point 3: Explore possibilities for expanding the journal to include content in languages other than English and/or material in translation.

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• Action Point 1: The President and the Executive Director will develop guiding values for diversity, equity, and inclusion for the Nominating Committee with respect to the Council nomination process, and these values will be made publicly available.

• Action Point 2: Improve communications to members regarding the role that they play in electing diverse members to the Council. Communications should cover the BSA’s “Work, Wisdom, & Wealth” requirements for Council participation and indicate that the Society appreciates varying individual resources, and values all three contributions from Council members.

• Action Point 3: The Policy and Procedures Manual Working Group will lead efforts to devise equitable and transparent procedures by which appointments to all BSA Committees and Working Groups will be made. Procedure documentation should include the criteria and/or qualifications for participation on each committee, information about the volunteer requirements for each committee (time commitment required, descriptions of the types of work done by committee members), and information about term length and renewal opportunities. While Committee or Working Group Chairs may from time to time appoint specific individuals to Committees, the Society will also issue calls for volunteers to members on a bi-annual basis. These procedures, when completed, will be posted to the Society’s website.

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• Action point 1: Continue to strengthen its Fellowship Program by adding new fellowships designed to encourage the study of under-represented bibliographical topics and by under-represented bibliographers.

• Action point 2: Prioritize awards for competitive proposals to individuals from under-represented groups.

• Action point 3: The Fellowship committee will assist in establishing professional, working relationships between fellows and the relevant staff at institutions that they plan to visit during their fellowship period. This includes making efforts to connect BSA Fellows with resources available to research fellows at the institution(s) they will be visiting.

• Action point 4: The Fellowship committee will devise language to include in the Fellowship award letter to indicate that the Society’s consultant ombudsperson (per the Professional Conduct policy) will be available to fellows for confidential discussion of harassment, discrimination, or other matters of concern experienced within libraries during their fellowship period. While the Society cannot play a role in mediating or resolving complaints, the consultant ombudsperson should be made available as an impartial, neutral listener.

• Action Point 5: The Fellowship Committee will improve outreach with Fellows during their Fellowship period to improve their engagement with the Society and connect them with the bibliographical community around the BSA.

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• Action point 1: Maintain a list of outlets for sharing calls for proposals to ensure that opportunities are publicized to a wide range of relevant organizations and interested individuals.

• Action point 2: Events Committee should solicit or otherwise encourage proposals from specific individuals to encourage engagement with a broad range of institutions. Specifically, the Society should seek to organize and sponsor events centering collections from institutions spread across geographic regions, and in North and South America in particular. In addition to geographic heterogeneity in BSA events, the Society should seek to center institutions with a range of collecting strengths and use its programs to build awareness of collections without longstanding reputations and established recognition in the field. The Society should also seek to better recognize traditional and indigenous textual materials held within creators’ communities, and any special circumstances working with those materials.

• Action point 3: Evaluate and expand BSA’s ability to improve physical access to in-person and virtual events by encouraging co-sponsoring organizations to offer and communicate about accommodations for individuals with a variety of requirements for access.

• Action Point 4: Proposals for events support will be required to document their event’s commitment to diversity in selecting presenters.

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All comments will be recorded and subsequently considered by the Executive Committee. Minor revisions may be approved by the Executive Committee; major revisions may be implemented following a discussion and vote by the Council after a preliminary review by the Executive Committee.

All approved revisions to this document will be published on the Society’s website, and previous versions will be preserved as PDF files in the Society’s archives.

The Society will annually revisit, review, revise, and expand this document and evaluate its progress to ensure that the Society’s commitment to diversity and inclusion is meaningful and sustained. As we work toward realizing these individual points with community participation, this living document and ancillary feedback mechanisms will model mutual support and an iterative process that reflects the Society’s goals for itself, its membership, and its broader academic context.

The Executive Director, Officers, and the Council of the BSA and Committee and Working Group chairs will be required to review and summarize their progress toward achieving each of these action points in their written reports to Council at each Council meeting, and also verbally or in writing at the request of the BSA President or Executive Director between meetings. The BSA will also add action items to this list, with the approval of the Council, as needed, in response to member feedback or otherwise.

This document was primarily written by (in alphabetical order) Jose Guerrero, Erin McGuirl, and Kyle Triplett as an ad hoc team of volunteers within the Membership Working Group during the summer of 2020. Officers and the Membership Working Group Chair shared their comments throughout the drafting process. After a final review by the Executive Committee in September 2020, the document was reviewed by five external readers, both members and non-members, from under-represented groups. Their suggested revisions were reviewed and incorporated by Guerrero, McGuirl, and Triplett and the final document was submitted to Council for approval at the October 31, 2020 Council meeting.

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The Executive Committee will appoint a small monitoring task force to track the Society’s progress on the Action Points listed above. It will be their responsibility to follow up with the Executive Committee and Council as needed and coordinate progress reporting with the President (to Council) and Executive Director (to the membership and general public).

The Society will update the membership and public regularly on our progress toward achieving these goals in the following ways.

• The Society will update the membership and our public by means of our electronic newsletter (published monthly) when we have made significant progress on or completed any one or multiple action plan points.

• The Society Info pages in PBSA will contain quarterly summaries of our progress on these initiatives in print and PDF formats.

• The Society’s annual report, available digitally and in print, will devote a section that reports on Equity Action Plan progress and accomplishments.

• The annual report, referenced above, will be published in PBSA, either in complete or abbreviated form, depending upon space constraints.

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