This month, we’d like to celebrate the work librarians have done and continue to do to advance equity, diversity, and inclusion in health sciences collections. At a time when many in our field are navigating mounting institutional pressure to silence equity-driven initiatives and covertly codify -- even erase -- the language of diversity in their work, it’s important to uplift and champion what’s been done in the hope of maintaining momentum against otherwise regressive forces. Below we showcase some recent Doody’s publications that implement innovative thoughts and strategies that uphold and affirm equity, diversity, and inclusion as professional priorities for health sciences librarians, libraries, and collections:

• “Crowdsourcing Collection Development” discusses the development of the NNLM’s Diverse Voices in Health & Medicine Collection Development Toolkit.
  
• “Open Educational Resources (OERs) and the Health Science Information Landscape: What I Want People to Know” shares how one librarian’s experience working toward open access emerged from and was necessitated by work around equity and diversity.
  
• “A Reverse Diversity Audit Case Study” highlights an innovative method for assessing and augmenting medical collections on the basis of equity, diversity, and inclusion.
  
• “The Use of an Audit Tool for Assessing Diversity in Library Collections” showcases more strategies for assessing a collection’s diversity, equity, and accessibility.
  
• “What We Wish We Had Known: The Collaborative Creation of Health Sciences Collection Development: An Overview of Fundamental Knowledge and Practices (2nd Edition)” discusses updates to the second edition of an open access health sciences collection development book, including diversity and equity updates to sections on collection development policies and the book’s peer review process.

Doody’s Special Topics Lists: These librarian-curated book lists aim to streamline collection development on high-impact topics important to health sciences libraries, many of which have centered on diversity, equity, and inclusion in health care. Here are just a few:

• Health Equity
• Rural Health
• Clinical Care of Indigenous Peoples
• Black Communities and Health

We are humbled to collaborate with incredible librarians who make substantial contributions to our professional community. We hope that by centering the diversity, equity, and inclusion work of our colleagues we can encourage and foster renewed energy and commitment to these professional values in light of forces working against them.

DCT Featured Article – March 11, 2025