Not Neutral, Not Safe

This post is part of a series that reviews decolonialism in libraries, archives and other similar spaces, from the perspective of the Global South and the margins, and how colonialism affects collections, staffing, services, activities, policies, and results. Check all the posts in this section's index.

The Myth of Neutrality and the Politics of Collection

Libraries are often imagined as neutral spaces — quiet, orderly, universal in their access to knowledge. But neutrality in libraries has always been a myth, one that conveniently masks the ideological nature of every decision made about what to collect, preserve, and circulate. A library's collection is not just a reflection of its budget or user base; it is a cultural map of whose voices are deemed worthy of record, and whose are not.

This curation of memory is not passive — it is a form of power.

When a library chooses to include materials that reflect a wide range of lived experiences, especially those of historically marginalized communities, it is not simply offering "perspectives." It is challenging inherited hierarchies of knowledge. A diverse collection unsettles assumptions about whose narratives are central and whose are peripheral. And in doing so, it invites friction — not just among users, but within the institution itself.

These are not decorative additions to a shelf. They are interventions in the epistemic landscape.

From Representation to Disruption

There is a common tendency in institutional discourse to treat diverse collections as gestures of inclusion — symbolic acts of visibility during heritage months or moments of public controversy. But representation, when reduced to symbolic performance, has little lasting impact. A few high-profile titles on display do not constitute a systemic commitment to equity. True transformation begins when diversity in collections is understood not as aesthetic variety but as a shift in the boundaries of what is considered legitimate knowledge.

Diverse collections that matter do not simply mirror existing identities — they introduce new tensions. They bring unfamiliar histories into dialogue with mainstream narratives and force uncomfortable questions. What happens when Indigenous science challenges Western ecological models? When prison abolitionist texts sit beside law enforcement manuals? When anti-colonial histories occupy the same shelf as state-sanctioned textbooks?

These moments of coexistence are not harmonious — they are productive ruptures. And they are essential to any library that claims to serve a democratic public.

The Library as Infrastructure for Movements

Social movements are often powered not only by protest and organizing, but by the preservation and transmission of memory. In this regard, libraries play a crucial —if often invisible— role. When collections include the intellectual and documentary foundations of resistance movements, they act as repositories of tactical knowledge, collective history, and political imagination. And unlike social media or news cycles, they can hold onto this knowledge over time.

This function becomes especially vital when the communities involved are systematically erased from dominant archives. Feminist collectives, Indigenous councils, migrant organizations, and abolitionist networks frequently produce materials —pamphlets, newsletters, oral testimonies, self-published books— that have no place in conventional publishing channels. When libraries choose to collect and preserve these materials, they are not simply supporting access. They are participating in the survival of memory that would otherwise disappear. And when those collections are activated —read, taught, cited, shared— they extend the lifespan and reach of the movements themselves.

Structural Barriers: Discovery, Access, and Silencing

Collecting diverse materials is only the beginning. How those materials are described, catalogued, and made discoverable is just as important — and often just as political. If a book on Black radical thought is buried under euphemistic subject headings, or if an oral history in a minority language has no metadata that makes it findable, then the collection fails. Visibility without access is a hollow gesture.

Libraries have inherited a metadata infrastructure built largely on Eurocentric, male, and Anglophone assumptions. Correcting this requires more than tweaking keywords. It requires deep engagement with community knowledge systems and a willingness to reimagine classification itself. Without this, the most progressive acquisitions remain effectively invisible. And when marginalized users can't find themselves in the catalog —or when they find themselves misrepresented— they receive a clear message: this space is not for you.

Measuring Impact Beyond Numbers

Evaluating the impact of diverse collections cannot rely solely on usage metrics. Circulation data, event attendance, or database clicks provide only a partial and often misleading view. Some of the most powerful encounters with a collection leave no statistical trace. A teenager finding a queer graphic novel that shifts their sense of identity. A teacher integrating an anti-racist text into the classroom. A migrant worker reading a pamphlet in their own language for the first time in years. These moments matter, even if they're unquantifiable.

Qualitative methods —community feedback, focus groups, oral testimonies— offer richer insights into how collections resonate. So do partnerships with grassroots organizations, who can help libraries understand what is missing or misrepresented. In these cases, the library becomes not just a distributor of resources, but a co-creator of meaning with its community. That kind of relational accountability cannot be measured by numbers alone. It must be listened for.

Toward a Library That Takes Sides

To build a truly diverse collection is not to strive for balance — it is to take a stand. Not against people, but against systems of erasure. This does not mean turning the library into a political campaign. It means acknowledging that the act of collecting, describing, and sharing knowledge has always been political, whether we name it or not. Libraries that pretend otherwise are not neutral — they are complicit in upholding dominant structures.

A library that takes sides does so by aligning itself with the communities whose voices have been historically excluded. It centers their knowledge not as supplemental, but as foundational. It doesn't wait for a publishing trend or a funding initiative — it acts. And when those actions provoke discomfort, it doesn't retreat into platitudes about "both sides." It holds the line.

Because the question is not whether diverse collections spark social change. The question is whether we build collections bold enough to try.