Building Bibliodiversity

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Building Bibliodiversity Marianne Ryan (bio) The increased emphasis on equity, diversity, inclusion, and justice in academia is not only warranted but overdue. In areas from hiring to enrollment to curricular offerings, universities have endeavored to offer a welcoming environment and an inclusive context for teaching, learning, and research that represents the world in which we live. Higher education's commitment to diversity and social justice, manifested in mission statements and highlighted in strategic plans, signals strong commitment to these values. An aspect of inclusivity on the higher education landscape that has gotten less attention is bibliodiversity. The term remains unfamiliar to many, not because attempts to diversify academic content have not happened or have not been a priority but because there has been a less concerted effort to use a single term, such as bibliodiversity, to convey the sum of these parts. At a time when issues such as representative viewpoints, access to information, and equalization of education are front and center, a commitment to bibliodiversity and a more coherent articulation of its principles by academic libraries could help to catalyze action and reorientation. Yet, as the International Alliance of Independent Publishers says, the concept of bibliodiversity "which rapidly gained currency and is rich in potential, remains little explored and debated, with limited thorough analysis."1 The Emergence of Bibliodiversity Bibliodiversity is not a recent phenomenon, but its origin story is somewhat murky. Conventional wisdom indicates that its roots can be traced back to a group of Chilean publishers who invented the Spanish term bibliodiversidad when they founded the Editores Independientes de Chile collective in the late 1990s. Other publishing groups have staked a claim to coining the actual term, if not to the overarching conceptualization. In response to the establishment of the Chilean collective, European publishers met in Spain in 2000 and Paris in 2001, near the time of UNESCO's Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. After these discussions, what is now known as the International Alliance of Independent Publishers formed in 2002. A global network of 800 publishers from 55 countries, the alliance emerged as the universal voice in support of bibliodiversity. Its advocacy, through meetings, workshops, projects, and communications, has [End Page 777] helped foster global awareness of bibliodiversity as an international movement. Among the initiatives it has undertaken, the alliance established Bibliodiversity Day, celebrated annually each September since 2010. In 2016, the group created the Bibliodiversity Observatory to assess and strengthen bibliodiversity efforts throughout the world. Following the establishment of the alliance, national publishers' groups met on other continents and declared their solidarity with the collaborative.2 Bibliodiversity emerged as a significant concept at a time that was ripe for it. The 1990s presented an opportune moment to consider bibliographic diversification more holistically. With the advent of the Internet, a new mechanism became available to not only distribute content but also create it. New techniques enabled people to identify and access information that previously had been hard to find. The Internet provided opportunities to discover small publishers and presses that had been working in obscurity. It also became a medium for self-publishing. Bibliodiversity Defined Originally defined as "cultural diversity applied to the writing and publishing world," bibliodiversity was thought of as "a complex, self-sustaining system of storytelling, writing, publishing, and other kinds of production of oral and written literature." This initial description speaks to ensuring a range of rich cultural perspectives and a wide assortment of formats, "the critical diversity of products (books, scripts, eBooks, apps, and oral literature) made available to readers."3 Implicit in this definition is the unique ability of independent publishers to produce a variety of output. Resonant with this notion is S. R. Ranganathan's second law of library science, "Every person his or her book."4 In addition to understanding the "what" of bibliodiversity, it is important to consider the "how"—the strategies and mechanisms necessary to make it a reality in the fullest sense. The thinking about bibliodiversity has evolved to reflect the growing complexity of the issue. Referencing the scholarly communication ecosystem, Kathleen Shearer, Leslie Chan, Iryna Kuchma, and Pierre Mounier note that "diversity in services and platforms, funding mechanisms, and evaluation measures will allow the...