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August 11, 2020 — In addition to this week's NewsBreaks article and the monthly NewsLink Spotlight, Information Today, Inc. (ITI) offers Weekly News Digests that feature recent product news and company announcements. Watch for additional coverage to appear in the next print issue of Information Today. For other up-to-the-minute news, check out ITI’s Twitter account: @ITINewsBreaks. CLICK HERE to view more Weekly News Digest items.

The Scholarly Kitchen's 'An Antiracist Framework for Scholarly Publishing'

The Antiracism Toolkit for Allies, now available on the website of the Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communication, is the first of three planned toolkits incubated at [the Triangle Scholarly Communication Institute] that will provide a common framework, shared vocabulary, and best practices to address racial disparities specific to scholarly publishing. Developed with the involvement of more than 50 individuals across races and organizations, the toolkits are designed to accelerate progress toward a more equitable and inclusive workplace culture.

Drawing on the structure and framework of the American Alliance of Museums’ guides for transgender inclusion, we, as the project organizers, identified a need for three toolkits:

• The Antiracism Toolkit for Allies promotes awareness and understanding of white advantage as well as information about how to disrupt racism and create workplace communities where everyone thrives. The toolkit includes a chronology of white supremacy in the United States, sample equity and inclusion programming, a sample list of affinity and inclusivity groups, and a list of recommended racial equity training organizations.
• The Antiracism Toolkit for Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (forthcoming) will provide advice on safely navigating predominantly white spaces that may feel exclusionary, building mentorship relationships, expanding career paths, advocating for change, and self-care.
• The Antiracism Toolkit for Organizations (forthcoming) will provide tools for understanding institutionalized racism, broadening hiring and recruiting, working to correct bias, including historically marginalized perspectives in decision making, and creating affinity groups and mentorship programs.

We believe that concrete actions towards equity in our industry have the potential to be transformative not just in our workplaces but for the worldwide research community. Our publishing programs shape understanding and debate about public policy, history, science, medicine, and critical race theory in all areas of scholarship across the academic and public arenas. Yet, most scholarly publishing companies are composed of workforces that do not reflect the public we engage and educate.

To ensure that scholarly publications reach their widest possible audience and provide scholars a path to publication unimpeded by bias, it is essential that our industry address the systemic role that racism plays in shaping our workplaces. The fallout from our industry’s lack of diversity includes racial bias in citation impact, workplace microaggressions, racially insensitive and offensive business strategies, and racial and ethnic disparities in research studies. Collectively and individually, these experiences impede our missions as scholarly publishers.

For more information, read the blog post.