Diversifying reading lists

Teams from Library Services helped UCL Economics undertake an analysis of the diversity of their undergraduate reading lists.

The Economics department approached Library Services for help to undertake a quantitative analysis of authors’ gender, ethnicity and geographic location across their undergraduate reading lists. With help from the Subject Liaison and ReadingLists@UCL teams, they discovered a "significant lack of diversity" in the lists. The Economics department are taking steps to adjust this, as well as identifying related actions to address diversity in the curriculum in general.

This demonstrates the significance and importance of analysing lists and collections for diversity and is an important element to consider as we continue our work in liberating our collections. Further guidance on diversity in reading lists can be found in the ReadingLists@UCL Guide: Liberating the Curriculum page, and more general information on the Liberating the Collections initiative can be found on the recently launched UCL Library Liberating the Collections webpages.