Diversify Your Sources

Academic sources in library collections, like many human legacies, often reflect biases stemming from colonization, discrimination, and historical and political factors. Finding diverse sources requires deliberate effort and awareness of our own biases, as well as recognition of oppression and the availability of alternative perspectives. These efforts are valuable because they pave the way for meaningful sources and foster comprehensive discussions in your academic pursuits.

Here are several strategies we can employ:

• Conduct a diversity audit of your source list, considering the publication and historical contexts of the works, who the authors are, who is impacted by their perspectives, whose voices might be marginalized or excluded, whether the knowledge is firsthand, and whether counter-narratives are represented in the reference list of the work.
• Search diverse databases. Use general directories such as Diverse Sources and Directory of Diverse Databases. For more commercial and internet collections, please check the sections of Databases and Internet Resources. 
• Find authors from the marginalized groups.

1. Ask your instructors about the diverse scholars in their fields
2. Combine citation mining with web search to find the identity of marginalized authors, noting down their community and research partners
3. Try the directories or publication lists of professional association diversity groups, such as the Association of Asian Studies, the Multicultural Experts Directory, and Sociologists for Trans-Justice. 
4. Consider using cultural-sensitive search terms to search for a marginalized author's works

• Discuss with your instructors and classmates about what constitute "authoritative sources" in the class context and suggest non-traditional scholarly content that incorporates diverse perspectives. These library guides might be useful: Evaluate Sources-Primary Sources, Fake News. 
• Sometimes we have to recognize the fact that due to the historical or other reasons relevant sources reflecting diverse perspectives are difficult to identify or not available. This might be the opportunity to encourage students to critically analyze the existing sources and reflect on what we can do to avoid similar situations in the future.