Read part 1 of the Diversity Audit blog series here!
Read part 3 of the diversity audit blog series here!
As you know from my last post I have begun a comprehensive and extensive Diversity Audit on my high school library’s fiction collection. I have decided to do the diversity audit by genre first, so that I will have data on the diversity of each individual genre. This information will help immensely with my collection development efforts going forward. After I have completed all 7 genre’s diversity audit, since I am completing it within a common excel sheet, I will also have the data for the collection as a whole.
Changes I Made
I’m basically making this audit process up as I go, since I was unable to find a comprehensive practical guide elsewhere. Since I’m learning as I go, I ended up making several changes after completing the Fantasy audit. Here are a couple things I changed:
Adding more author categories
Initially I only had a couple author diversity categories, but I decided I wanted more comprehensive data on the authors. Originally I was auditing authors for:
But I’ve now added several more categories, which you can see here:
Titles vs. Copies
I am auditing every single copy in the collection, because I will then be able to use the barcodes in the spreadsheet to easily and quickly add the audit data to Destiny via copy categories when I’m finished.
But I did make a change regarding which data I present in my graphs. Originally I was presenting the data for the copies but I’m switching to presenting the data on the titles instead. The reason for the change is that I’m concerned the duplicates would muddy the waters of the diversity of the collection and I want a clearer view of the diversity of the titles. Luckily since I am auditing each copy I can always run the data for the copies if needed.
Sci Fi Author Diversity:
Science Fiction Main Character Diversity
Don't Shush Me! 
So interesting to see how the data is coming out. I can see so many uses for this information. I am looking forward to seeing the next updates!
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Thank you so much!
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Hi! I was wondering if you were okay with people posting your charts with accreditation? If not, totally okay, I just try to amplify how terribly cis/het white male the industry is and your charts are wonderful!
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ABSOLUTELY! Once I’m finished I’ll be creating an info graphic and everything but absolutely go ahead and share!
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Thank you so much for prompting me to think about my future plans for the audit. May I ask how long this process took to do?
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I started it in the spring snd finished it in September. I didn’t work on it much over the summer. If you devote a couple hours a week to it, it goes quicker than you’d think!
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Great! Thanks! May I ask how big your collection is? I want to eyeball an estimated time for completion.
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Sure, I don’t have the exact # but it was probably about 2000 unique titles (not including duplicates)
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Kelsey, thank you for the posts on this topic. We are in the initial stages of forming a group to begin our diversity audit. I had a question regarding the character diversity data. The total books are 286 titles, but the main character totals exceed that so I was wondering if you put main characters into multiple categories? Thanks in advance.
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Hi There, that is because some books have multiple POV characters. For the purposes of my audit i included data for any characters that were “main” characters, or significant POV characters
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