Stony Brook University Libraries’ Anti-Racism Task Force

Charge

Focus on ways for Stony Brook University Libraries to address social justice issues through access to information and awareness via resources, instruction and programming:

• Collection development: Improve library’s online collections addressing racism perpetrated against underrepresented communities, specifically, the African American community in the context of the Black Lives Matter movement.
• Create interactive forums such as seminars and workshops that engage the community in understanding the deep structures of racism. 
• Create an online collection of materials relevant to understanding and combating racism and discrimination.

About

The Anti-Racism Task Force was formed in the summer of 2020 in response to murder of George Floyd on May 25th at the hands of police and the national and international swift call to action against the continued racism perpetrated against people of African descent in the United States. The task force was formed to take action to uphold the statement against systemic racism by Stony Brook University Libraries.

2021/2022 Projects

• Create a research guide that focuses on the Black Lives Matter movement (Anti-Racism Task Force) and add to other related guides that focus on Equity, Inclusion and Diversity issues in general ( Stony Brook University Libraries’ Equity, Inclusion and Diversity Committee). The guide will provide not only resources but also search terms to help researchers and/or patrons search for material focused on racism and anti-racism. 
• Curate a digital collection documenting SBU’s response to the racial unrest that continues to plague the United States. The digital project will document the racial unrest following the murder of George Floyd on May 25th, 2020 through interviews conduced by student workers and faculty of Stony Brook University Libraries and the Stony Brook University’s community (students, staff, and faculty).
• Work with the University Libraries’ Lead Selectors Group to purchase online monographs, videos and other resources relevant to the Black Lives Matter and other anti-racist movements
• Amass and periodically update a list of vendors (preferably African American and/or other underrepresented groups)

Accomplishments

• In collaboration with SBU’s Chief Diversity officer, Dr. Judith Brown-Clarke, Dr. Zebulon Miletsky (Africana Studies), SBU Libraries acquired the HistoryMakers database.
• The Anti-Racism Task Force was awarded two $8000 grants from the Office of Chief Diversity Officer. The funds are dedicated to student salaries for their work on collection development, the research guide and the digital project.

Participate in Our Digital Project

The anti-racism task force, along with student workers and personnel from Stony Brook University Libraries and the Africana Studies department are documenting racial encounters, experiences, and feelings about racial injustice that members of the SBU Community experienced since the murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 in he format of oral history interviewing. The focus of this digital project is to document and the resurgence in the fight for racial and social justice that precipitated from the events of May 25, 2020.

This digital collection of interviews with Stony Brook University students (both undergraduate and graduate), staff, and faculty will be available through the SBU Libraries Open Access repository, Academic Commons in February 2024. If you are interested in contributing an oral history interview please email: mona.ramonetti@stonybrook.edu or victoria.pilato@stonybrook.edu

All items will be managed and preserved by Stony Brook University Libraries and made open for viewing in an online platform available to the public.

Header Image

Attribution: Image is adapted with modifications from the original by Taymaz Valley from Ottawa, Canada, at the Wikimedia Commons, and is reused under the terms of a CC BY 2.0 license.