Diversity by design: From concept to action

Last year, in a guest editorial for the Library Quarterly (LQ) we proposed the concept of diversity by design (DbD) and posited it as a concept relevant to workplace environments, community engagements and graduate LIS education. We invited LQ readers “to contemplate whether this concept ma[de] sense to them and, if yes, how it work[ed] in their respective” situations [1: 88]. We brought to light “the multiplicity of contexts that give diversity meaning and life in our complex field” [ibid] and demonstrated that it was integral, rather than superfluous, to our field and way of being. Finally, we gave examples of how “discounting or underappreciating” diversity “may have a disintegrating effect on our practice, scholarship, and education” [ibid]. This poster will introduce the concept of DbD; provide examples of several case studies which show the difference between “diversity as a bonus” and “diversity by design”; and include feedback and insight from the DbD grant‐funded international symposium in Toronto, Canada, in September 2017.