About the Edsel Ford Memorial Library

The Edsel Ford Memorial Library and the Hotchkiss Archives & Special Collections stand in solidarity with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC), particularly Hotchkiss students, alumni, faculty, and staff. In the wake of the 2020 protests in response to the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, Rayshard Brooks, and many more throughout United States’ history, we express our anger and sadness at the ongoing racist violence across the country.

As staff and members of the Hotchkiss community we commit to increasing our knowledge about systemic racism and the ways it has influenced our work as librarians, archivists, or curators. Further, we support The Hotchkiss School, its board of trustees’ Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee, and incoming Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Daymyen Layne, in their essential work to strengthen School culture and divest it of racism, marginalization, and bigotry. We believe the Library and its satellite programs of Archives and Special Collections should always be places free of racism and bigotry, where students feel safe, seen, and supported.

Libraries, archives and special collections are not neutral. While we strive to make information equitably available to everyone, we also recognize there are historical and implicit biases ingrained in much of what we do from the way we catalog, to the narratives that dominate our collections, to the presumption of privilege that permeates our resources. To that end, we commit to the following actions:

As individuals

• We work to educate ourselves about anti-racism and racial equity, and wherever possible, participate in programs about systemic racism available to the wider School community.
• We examine the language we use in the Library and in our workspaces.

As a Library, Archives and Special Collections

• We work to ensure that our spaces are welcoming.
• We reevaluate our policies, looking for possible barriers in language and tone.
• We encourage dialogue with our community about our resources.
• We strive to develop collections that equitably reflect and represent Hotchkiss BIPOC community members.
• We reexamine our classification and description philosophies to make material more discoverable and to reflect contemporary and inclusive views of race and gender.
• We work with Hotchkiss faculty to make sure our teaching, exhibits, and digital content is inclusive and culturally responsive.

Follow this link to view library resources on the subject of anti-racism.

2020, updated 2023