CRT in praxis: Library and archival collections at San José State University

3.1King Library’s general collections

Beginning with Black feminist scholarship in the 1980s and continuing with Kimberlé Crenshaw’s use of the word for jurisprudence in the 1990s, “intersectionality” came to refer to a way of understanding the complex and multifaceted nature of subjugated identities (Crenshaw, 1991). Scholarship and critical praxis as tools of social justice also inform the concept of intersectionality (Vamvaka-Tatsi, 2020). In “Making a new table: Intersectional Librarianship” Fobazi Ettarh (2014) questions the ‘neutrality’ supposedly assumed in librarianship. Arguing that collection development and programming are inherently political, Ettarh cites the example of how Black history-related displays of materials and programming are relegated to February as the designated time for them to be highlighted above, rather than subsumed underneath, the dominant white, male, heterosexual, middle-class perspective, which is otherwise maintained as ‘normal’ and ‘neutral’.

Applying this concept to its work, the CWG looked to examine the SJSU collection through multiple disciplines simultaneously. Team members used a combination of keywords such as race, gender, class, disability, and sexuality in order to locate the areas of widest intersectional coverage. Based on those preliminary searches, and the available scholarship to use as guidance, it was determined that holdings related to Americans of African descent (i.e. African Americans) were the best set to examine first. Moreover, anti-essentialism is a core theme of concern for CRT. When a group of color is essentialized with certain unflattering character traits and represented on TV, movies, cartoons, and books, that group becomes fixated with those traits in the majority white perception. CRT, through its concern with anti-essentialism as related to differential racialization, helps to question the stereotyping informing the group’s perceived identities (Delgado et al., 2017). The CWG team, in selecting multiple keywords, actively searched for titles that would reveal the anti-essentialism of the African American focus in our collection.

Anti-essentialism is very close to another CRT tool: enabling the voices of the marginalized to be heard in the narratives from their own perspectives. Counter-story is a critical tool because it exposes the narratives that were silenced and bears witness to the processes of silencing. Library collection building adapts the tenet by acquiring resources that counter the dominant privileged narrative. Recently, when the subject liaison librarian for African American Studies met with faculty members to discuss areas of focus for teaching and research so that their feedback could inform the titles she would acquire, she was told that neo-narratives of slavery need not be part of her search. The faculty member emphasized the need to move away from dominant themes of police brutality and incarcerations in the community and instead focus on the artistic achievements of the community and related scholarship that would enhance the visibility of positive narratives about the community.

To capture an accurate view of SJSU holdings on this topic, a collections report was constructed to retrieve the number of bibliographic records using the Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH) “African American*” (note the wildcard * used to capture all headings that start with the phrase regardless of the words that follow) and “Blacks and United States.” As LCSH term usage is painstakingly documented, it was relatively straightforward for an SJSU cataloger to determine that as of 29 November 2000, “African American” would only be used as a descriptive phrase at the start of a heading and never as a stand-alone heading or subdivision (eg. African American abolitionists, African American actors, African American academic libraries) (Library of Congress, 2000). It is used to refer to “works on citizens of the United States of black African descent,” whereas “works on blacks who temporarily reside in the United States, such as aliens, students from abroad, etc., are entered under Blacks-United States.” (Policy & Standards Division 2013, A-96). Thus, both terms were used to capture the resources which the CWG was looking to address.

While this data is based on the publication date of the book rather than the purchase date by the library, because SJSU acquisitions records are only retrievable electronically from about 2003 onward, there is generally a strong correlation between publication date and purchase date in the SJSU practice. Books are generally purchased within 0–5 years of their publication because the librarians keep collections up-to-date. So, it is likely that dividing this table by decade gives us a general picture, not only of holdings, but of purchasing practice.

The analysis shows that the distinct majority of books on African American topics in the SJSU collection were published between 1990 and 2020, with another large influx of physical books in the 1970’s. While there are certainly correlations with these decades and activism at SJSU, the formation of the Africana Collection in the 1990’s for example, it is also likely that these dates are a reflection of when books about African Americans were published in the US. The 1970’s, for instance, have been referred to as the “heyday of African American literature’s canon formation” (Nishikawa, 2015).

Typically, an academic library adds to its collections based on teaching and research needs. However, looking at the holdings information and noticing a drop-off in purchasing of African American titles in the last few years, a subgroup of the CWG began to compare current holdings with the titles grouped under the category of ‘Racial Justice’ in Choice Reviews, a primary database used by library selectors to evaluate publication quality. When the comparison is completed, the CWG will share its findings with the larger Collection Development team and Library Administration to make recommendations for purchase.

Not only does the CWG aim to scrutinize different disciplines’ collections with ‘African American’ and ‘Black’ as the primary keywords, its members are working interdepartmentally to find the widest approach to reviewing existing resources. The library liaisons for the departments of English Language & Comparative Literature, Nursing, Educational Leadership, and Occupational Therapy work cooperatively to conduct catalog searches, review holdings, and identify gaps in the existing collections. Meanwhile, colleagues from the Data and Resource Management department generated reports to determine if budgetary allocations in the different disciplines could have inadvertently shaped the collection in the wrong direction.

Ideologies of “color blindness, objectivity, neutrality, and meritocracy” (Leung & López-McKnight, 14) have informed every structure of US society that have successfully prevented BIPOC perspectives, merits, and knowledge from being acknowledged. The Library of Congress subject headings, for example, which are used to classify and arrange almost all university libraries in the United States, have been inherently problematic since their inception in the late 19th century (Stone, 2019). Intended to be used as neutral categories within which multiple perspectives have had to be squeezed, they have historically been created and applied by those in the dominant culture and have therefore reinforced the racial biases, racist practices, and historical erasures of BIPOC experiences, to which that group is prone. In the RUSA (Reference and User Services Association of the American Library Association) sponsored webinar, ‘Decolonizing the catalog: Antiracist Description Practices from Authority Records to Discovery Layers’ (2021) participants discussed how they address this issue, by collecting material from equity- and anti-racism-focused colleagues and engaging directly with the Library of Congress to lobby for alterations or additions. In particular, the group’s African American Subject Funnel Project is focused on making African American resources more discoverable and the references to them less biased (African American Studies Librarians Interest Group, n.d.).

On a more local scale, a working group was recently formed among librarians of the California State University (CSU) system to evaluate problematic subject headings as a consortium. Since 2017, the 23 CSU campuses have used a Unified Library Management System (ULMS), which allows them to share catalog records, holdings information, and other systems technology. The discovery system included in this ULMS allows the CSUs to make changes to the display of subject headings, without editing the underlying records which must adhere to the Library of Congress standards. This method was utilized recently to change the display of the heading “Noncitizens” to that of “Undocumented immigrants”. The group will discuss terms related to African Americans and other BIPOC groups in coming months. As for CWG’s charge, in order to critique dominant ideologies, it will study the gaps in the collections as a reflection of dominant ideologies. The investigation itself will become a critique of the dominant ideology in praxis.

Another of CWG’s projects is to identify gaps in the African American/Africana Collection by drawing up assessment protocols and by comparing our collection with collections of similar sized public university libraries. CWG members hypothesize that the identified gaps will prompt more questions about collecting practices in the past and their relationship with teaching and learning on campus. CWG will also make recommendations to the Collection Development team about filling gaps in the collection. This process of identifying gaps can be extended to other subject areas. The library has begun to outline discipline-specific collection development policies based on department needs, publication format and currency, curriculum relevance, and quality of publications. Research has shown a lack of representation of African Americans and Blacks as reviewers, editors, and authors in scientific literature (Else & Perkel, 2022). This might pose additional challenges in developing collections in certain disciplines. However, it is imperative that educators become cognizant about these facts while selecting materials for the libraries and course curricula.

Ultimately, the exclusion and silencing of lived experiences of BIPOC as a source of knowledge is a historical and ongoing systemic practice that has led to a loss of many critical perspectives and enrichment. CRT draws our attention to how important these perspectives are in order to create a socially just ecosystem of knowledge. Members of CWG consult scholarship and their own knowledge (many identify as BIPOC) when we discuss the different steps involved in the projects we develop. In fact, the Code of Conduct for the group was formulated on the basis of discussions among all members and their lived and work-place experiences.

3.2SJSU’s Special Collections & Archives (SC&A)

The task of analyzing the holdings of Special Collections & Archives (SC&A) fell to the Special Collections Librarian. She built on the work of the University Archivist, who created a series of spreadsheets titled “Quantifying Special Collections” and offered them up to use as a model. The University Archivist’s spreadsheets focused on archival collections related to the history of the university, while the Special Collection Librarian’s portion of the CWG’s work centered on non-university archival collections. Along with a fellow faculty librarian colleague, the Special Collections Librarian modified the University Archivist’s spreadsheet to list all non-university related archival collections. Along with the filing title of each collection, the spreadsheet included the following fields: collection number, subject, characterization/keywords, date range, link to the finding aid, extent in boxes and linear feet, and Library of Congress authorized subject headings. The addition of fields listing the numerical extent allowed the group to calculate the exact number of boxes and linear feet devoted to archival collections containing Black subject matter. Historically, SJSU’s university archives do not adequately and fully reflect the lives of Black students or faculty, and the non-university archival collections contain many gaps in relation to San José’s Black community. This spreadsheet enabled the group to quantify the amount of archival collections directly and indirectly related to African American and Black subject matter, and added to the work the group is doing to determine gaps in collection development.

The archivist Lae’l Hughes-Watkins (2018) created a framework for academic institutions to use when addressing historic wrongs in traditional archival practice. Hughes-Watkins calls this roadmap “reparative archiving” and describes the process for

The concept of reparative archiving (Hughes-Watkins, 2018) is used by SC&A in concert with the CRT framework of this paper to address and update long-standing collection development policies and archival processing practices. The first step in this process was acknowledging the fact that information about marginalized groups on campus is often missing or poorly described, and dedicated efforts are necessary to engage in reparative archival practices. Informed by the Archives for Black Lives Anti-Racist Description Resources, (A4BLiP, 2019) these practices include working to decolonize traditional descriptive procedures through the redescription and reprocessing of existing collections that were previously minimally processed at the box level, or minimally described in the collection’s finding aid. Engaging in redescription “as liberatory archival praxis” (Sutherland & Purcell, 2021) serves to reduce harm inflicted on communities affected by the lack of descriptive efforts mentioned above, provides deeper context to researchers, and replaces search keywords that are racist and dehumanizing. Future plans include further expanding digitization projects to provide more equitable access to archival materials, training student workers in reparative archival work, and continued outreach to and collaboration with both the campus and the greater San José community.

In addition to the Quantifying Special Collections spreadsheet, SC&A launched an exhibit titled Black Spartans (1907–1948) based on ongoing research into the history of Black student life at the university, beginning with the first Black graduate, Lucy Turner (Johnson). This work arose from researcher inquiries related to the first Black students and faculty at the university, along with conversations among an informal group of CSU archivists interested in researching and highlighting Black history at their respective campuses. These inquiries and conversations led to a research project focused on surfacing the stories of Black students beginning with Lucy Turner (Johnson) up to the present day. During the time period the research focused on, 1907–1948, Black students were often left out of accounts of student life. The yearbook did not list Black-led groups or events, and photos of Black students were lacking labels containing identifying information in the same page spreads that listed white students by name. As Richard Delgado points out in Storytelling for Oppositionists and Others, “The stories or narratives told by the in-group remind it of its identity in relation to out-groups and provide it with a form of shared reality in which its own superior position is seen as natural.” (2013). Examples of this form of shared reality include the omissions related above, which positioned white-led student groups as the only affinity groups on campus, despite the fact that BIPOC affinity groups existed at the same time. One instance involved the 1930s-era student Verse Speaking Choir, which had a Black counterpart, the Negro Verse Speaking Choir. The student newspaper mentions both choirs, but the yearbook only contains photos of the white choir’s members.

The King Library’s adopted CRT framework is a tool that informs the work SC&A is doing to better understand historic racial inequalities on campus. The Black Spartans research project and exhibit seeks to bring to light the point of view of Black students throughout the university’s history, and gain an understanding of their experiences on campus when confronted with racism embedded in institutional practices. Without the fundamental understanding that racial inequality does exist, the university cannot move forward in addressing these issues. By critiquing the dominant ideologies that the university holds about itself and its history, the project was able to begin to address the long-standing marginalization of Black students on campus, and uncover stories of Black student life. The project involved identifying problematic dominant ideologies, namely that the narratives the University shares about its history as a “diversity university” (Stevenson, 2016) are not bolstered by our research. SJSU was originally established in 1857, and graduated its first Black student in 1907; the assertion that the university has always been diverse is belied by the fact that it took 48 years for the administration to admit its first Black student.

During the period the project focuses on, minstrel shows and blackface were often part of student-led campus events. These types of practices did not solely impact Black students; they also affected other students of color including Asian-Americans and Mexican-Americans. Racist costumes were worn by white student performers without consideration of the damage that this kind of dehumanizing activity would have on their classmates, nor were these activities frowned upon by university faculty and administration. Delgado writes about how “dominant society racializes different minority groups at different times, in response to shifting needs such as the labor market” (Delgado et al., 2017). This statement is shown to be true throughout SJSU’s early history, when Black students were celebrated in campus press for their expertise in the money-making industries of sports and entertainment, but rarely acknowledged publicly for their academic achievements.

Using the CRT tenet of counter-storytelling as a goal, the stories of the first Black students at SJSU began to be told through their own history, rather than through the words of their white counterparts. During the creation of the exhibit, a primary focus was finding materials by the students, or told in the student’s own words. As a result, the Black Spartans exhibit features books written by the students or books containing quotes from them, which range from poetry to autobiography. Purchasing these books is one way of addressing the gaps in our collection and helps create a fuller picture of the activities of Black alumni throughout the University’s history. The dearth of information coming directly from university sources led us to find much of the background about the first Black graduate, Lucy Turner (Johnson), from resources created outside of SJSU. The 1978 book A History of Black Americans in Santa Clara Valley was written by a local Black women’s organization, the Garden City Women’s Club, and contained vital information about Lucy Turner (Johnson) and her family. Adding these resources to the collection demonstrates a new storytelling as more voices are included. Effectively, “Counterstory, then, is a method of telling stories by people whose experiences are not often told. Counterstory as methodology thus serves to expose, analyze, and challenge stock stories of racial privilege and can help to strengthen traditions of social, political, and cultural survival and resistance.” (Martinez, 2017).

An additional component of importance within the King Library’s adopted CRT framework is interdisciplinary engagement. When researching Black student history and adding relevant related materials to our collections, the university and the greater community need to be involved. The full story of Black student life at SJSU can only be told with the inclusion of Black alumni, community members, and current students. Part of the Black Spartans exhibit and project involves outreach to these communities inviting them to participate, as well as direct involvement from departments across campus. Portraits of nineteen Black students were created by a Black Digital Media Arts student using images from the student newspaper and yearbook as well as original art, and the exhibit was co-sponsored by the Department of African American Studies, and the Mosaic Cross Cultural Center, among others. Research assistance was provided by current BIPOC student assistants. In addition, outreach to San José public librarians resulted in the Black Spartans exhibit going on display in three SJPL branch locations from June-August 2022. These interdisciplinary, intergenerational, and intersectional choices were purposeful, resulting in participation from as wide a body of contributors and collaborators as possible.