Centering Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion Principles in a Consortial Community

The Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries (PASCAL) is a 57-member academic library consortium. Our diverse membership includes public and private institutions, two-year, four-year, research, and special libraries. For over 20 years, PASCAL has worked to provide equitable access to high quality academic resources through multiple programs, including a statewide rapid print-delivery service; core electronic resources, affordable learning efforts, and most recently, a shared library platform supporting virtually all of higher education in South Carolina. Our longstanding efforts to level the playing field for students, faculty and staff at every member institution have taken on greater urgency in the recent years, as issues of equity, diversity and inclusion have come to the forefront across our members campuses. In 2021, the PASCAL Board of Directors convened an Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Committee that was tasked with supporting PASCAL and its member institutions in developing and promoting a diverse workforce and to foster EDI in policies, practices, programming and services both internally and externally. In its first year, the EDI Committee has experimented with multiple approaches to foster a welcoming and supportive community within the consortium and to support both individual members and member libraries in their efforts to better serve diverse populations on their campuses. The session will cover the Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries' effort to embed the principles of equity, diversity and inclusion in all our programs; support member libraries' equity, diversity and Inclusion efforts; and engage our community in discussion and reflection. We'll discuss challenges we've faced, future plans, and engage participants in a discussion on how a collaborative approach could be replicated by other consortia, library systems, or even within an individual library or institution.