The Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Scholarly Communication website was developed by the following individuals at the University of California:
- Catherine Mitchell, California Digital Library, Director of Publishing, Archives, and Digitization
- Charlotte Roh, California Digital Library, Publications Manager
- Kerry Scott, UCSC Library, Associate University Librarian for Collections & Services
- Allegra Swift, UCSD Library, Scholarly Communications Librarian
- Anneliese Taylor, UCSF Library, Head of Scholarly Communication
We also acknowledge the involvement of previous members of the UC Office of Scholarly Communication (OSC) DEI Subcommittee in early conversations about this work: Erich Van Rijn (UC Press), Martha Stuit (UC Santa Cruz), and Greg Leazer (UCLA).
The idea to create this resource for the (OSC) website emerged in 2020, as members of OSC reflected on the absence of DEI discussions at UC focused explicitly on scholarly communication. An OSC subcommittee formed in late 2020 to approach the question of equity and inclusion in scholarly communication from two angles:
- engaging in broader efforts within the scholarly communication domain to discover, adopt and advocate for new practices to address systemic racism in academia and academic publishing
- taking measure of DEI efforts/outcomes within our UC publishing programs/services
This group sought to explore the research and resources in this space; curate resources and best practices on the OSC site; and identify diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) values and best practices to build into UC publishing programs. After consulting with library stakeholders and the University Committee on Library & Scholarly Communication (UCOLASC) throughout 2021, work began in earnest in February 2022 to develop this new content for the OSC site. The first draft of the resource was sent out for review to several stakeholder groups in October 2022, and revisions based on their feedback were completed in May 2023.
Our approach with this resource has been to identify the stakeholders involved in the scholarly communication sphere, explore the literature addressing what inequities exist within each stakeholder group, and present a selection of resources designed to address these inequities.The site is not meant to be an exhaustive index of all relevant resources. We have emphasized, wherever possible, including freely available scholarly works and websites authored or created by historically underrepresented authors.
Revisions & Next Steps
We plan to update the content on this website on an ongoing basis and will indicate when a page has been updated. If you have feedback on the site, or would like to get involved with updating and revising it, reach out to osc@ucop.edu.
In keeping with the group’s original directive, we will work to identify opportunities for the California Digital Library, UC Press, and the UC campuses to build DEI values and expectations into our publishing and licensing activities–in terms of policies, content, and participants–and will additionally research national and international initiatives to encourage DEI practices within scholarly communication, advocating for UC’s participation in these broader efforts as appropriate.
Page updated: August 1, 2023
