Foreword The people and communities that we serve deserve to have books, services, and resources that reflect not only their lives but their current economic and societal information needs. Communities are constantly changing, and it is the library’s responsibility to make sure we are adjusting our practices to meet our customers’ needs. Sarah Voels’s research on auditing diversity in library collections serves as a guide for developing a practice to ensure our resources reflect the communities that we serve. Providing equal access to all library customers is an essential component of every library’s mandate. However, there are systemic barriers that inhibit marginalized populations from having equitable access to library resources and services. Next, I share personal examples that relate to Sarah’s work on how these systemic barri- ers can inhibit equitable access to resources and services in libraries. Before getting my start in public libraries as a community and neighbor- hood branch manager in 2018, I worked for six years in academic libraries and almost four years in school libraries, and I worked with a nonprofit I founded in 2017, iLibrary Experience, which ensured that disadvantaged students would have equitable access to school library experiences. Advo- cating and developing initiatives, programs, and services to push equity and inclusion within libraries has been a constant throughout my span of 13 years in libraries. In each role, I have consistently worked in spaces where my customer base was majority Black and Hispanic with socioeconomic challenges. I often found myself in situations where strategic advocacy was needed to ensure equitable services and resources were available for my cus- tomer base. My passion and continuous dedication to this issue led to me receiving a Library State Technology Act (LSTA) grant to create a cowork- ing space (Library Entrepreneur Research Hub) for a historically Black col- lege or university (HBCU) library in Charlotte, North Carolina. This space provided students and marginalized residents access to technology, ideation workshops, free business consultation sessions, and a new collection of
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