A Line in the Shelves

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 End of the Shelf as We Knew It

The time has come to reassess the foundational assumptions that underpin library collection development.

For too long, this practice has been framed as a neutral, benevolent endeavor: selecting materials, preserving them, and making them available in the service of a shared public good. Yet, when placed under critical scrutiny, it becomes clear that collection development is not —and has never been— neutral. It is shaped by historical power asymmetries, by institutional imperatives, and by the classificatory logics of the Western epistemological tradition.

Reformist interventions have attempted to soften these structures through inclusion initiatives and representational audits. However, such efforts, while well-intentioned, often leave the core architecture of exclusion intact. They diversify the occupants of the shelf but rarely question the logic of the shelf itself. A deeper transformation is needed — not cosmetic, but structural. Not additive, but interrogative. This transformation begins by naming what the field has historically refused to name: that collection development, as traditionally practiced, is a system of epistemic governance, not simply one of care.

Extraction by Another Name

Preservation, in the professional language of librarianship, is commonly understood as a moral imperative. But the idea of preservation must be disentangled from its historical entanglements with imperial control. When preservation becomes indistinguishable from possession —when materials are collected without context, consent, or return— the act ceases to be protective and becomes extractive.

This extractivism is not merely historical. It continues in contemporary acquisition practices, particularly when materials from Indigenous, marginalized, or displaced communities are added to institutional holdings without relational accountability. Even when framed as inclusive or diverse, these acquisitions often function as symbolic gestures that reinforce institutional legitimacy while failing to address the power differentials embedded in the process. To archive Indigenous oral knowledge using frameworks that erase its performative and communal dimensions is not preservation; it is transformation into something legible to the institution, often at the cost of its epistemic integrity.

Relational Ethics Beyond Representational Tactics

Reimagining collection development as a decolonial practice requires a move from representational politics to relational ethics. The goal cannot be the mere diversification of collections. Rather, it must involve a fundamental rethinking of what it means to hold, to describe, and to give access to knowledge. This shift demands that libraries begin their work not with the question of what should be acquired, but with more difficult questions: On whose terms? With what right? And in service of whom?

Relational ethics calls for a deep accountability to the communities whose knowledges are held —or sought— by libraries. This accountability is not procedural; it is not fulfilled through consent forms or advisory committees alone. It is epistemological and ongoing. It entails ceding control over descriptive practices, access protocols, and even decisions about whether certain materials should be housed in the library at all. It also demands recognition of the limits of institutional authority — and a willingness to respect non-circulation, non-disclosure, or repatriation as legitimate outcomes.

Dismantling the Infrastructure of Legibility

One of the most pervasive, yet least examined, assumptions in library work is that access is inherently good. The promise of access is predicated on the belief that knowledge becomes valuable through its availability. However, this belief rests on a very particular epistemology — one that privileges legibility, circulation, and individual retrieval over situated, relational, and sometimes sacred forms of engagement.

Cataloging systems and classification schemes enforce legibility by making knowledge intelligible according to institutional norms. In doing so, they often flatten, distort, or erase those elements of knowledge that refuse to conform. Revolutionary collection practices must therefore interrogate the very infrastructure of visibility. What forms of knowledge are rendered invisible by cataloging logics? What meanings are lost when ritual, seasonality, or oral transmission are forced into static subject headings? And crucially, how can libraries develop practices that respect opacity, that allow for the protection —rather than the exposure— of vulnerable knowledges?

Naming Complicity and Reframing Stewardship

Librarianship has long relied on the narrative of stewardship: the idea that libraries preserve, protect, and make available knowledge in the service of cultural continuity and democratic access. While this narrative holds some truth, it also masks the extent to which libraries have operated within —and often upheld— the structures of colonial knowledge production. What is preserved, what is described, and what is made available has historically aligned with dominant systems of value, classification, and legitimacy. Knowledge that fell outside those systems was often ignored, misrepresented, or forcibly translated.

To move forward, librarians must be willing to name this complicity. Doing so is not an act of self-recrimination, but a necessary step toward transformation. By confronting the systems we have inherited and sustained, we make space for alternatives. We begin to understand that stewardship cannot be defined solely by preservation and access, but must also include relational repair, epistemic humility, and a recognition of past and present harms.

From Inclusion to Structural Refusal

There is a growing recognition within critical librarianship that inclusion, while necessary, is not sufficient. Inclusion efforts that operate within the existing logics of collection and classification risk reinforcing the very systems they aim to challenge. True transformation requires structural refusal: a refusal to continue business as usual, a refusal to classify that which resists classification, and a refusal to acquire that which cannot be held responsibly.

This is not to advocate for chaos or abandonment of professional rigor. Rather, it is a call to reorient rigor toward a different set of principles: those rooted in relational accountability, cultural specificity, and epistemic justice. It is a call to recognize that not all knowledge should be archived, that not all memory is meant for public access, and that sometimes, the most ethical act a library can perform is to step back.

The Threshold of Praxis

What lies ahead is not a technical upgrade or a refinement of existing tools. It is not a new workflow, nor a better taxonomy. What lies ahead is the opportunity —and the obligation— to reimagine collection development as a form of cultural praxis. A praxis that does not seek to improve the archive, but to liberate it from the assumptions that have long governed it.

The transition to culturally responsible, revolutionary collection work begins with a reckoning: with what we hold, how we hold it, and whether we should hold it at all. It continues with the development of new methods, grounded in refusal, reciprocity, and relation. And it culminates not in a universal model, but in a plurality of practices — each responsive to place, people, and purpose.

This is not the end of collection development. It is the beginning of something else entirely.