Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Initiatives Student Librarian
Background
Care Barker (she/they) is a student in the Master of Library and Information Studies
(MLIS) program at the University of British Columbia. Care is a mother to an incredible nine-year-old, partner to a History nerd, and caregiver to a large fluffy cat and a series of long-suffering houseplants.
Fall 2026 is Care’s fourth term of MLIS study, and the beginning of her 9th year at UBC. She completed her B.A. with a Double Major in English Literature and History at UBC. When she’s not at the library, Care creates comics and experiments with creating accessible, multi-format art. She brings lenses of accessibility and neuroaccessibility to her work.
Current Role & Responsibilities
The EDI Student Librarian supports the development of the Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) Scholars-in-Residence program, along with assisting in other community engagement programming at the IKBLC.
Q&A with Care
Could you tell us more about yourself? Could you share with us some of your experiences working with community? What types of projects are you most proud of?
My name is Care (she/they). I have been privileged to spend over a decade of my professional life developing and facilitating community programming and helping newcomers to Canada navigate this country’s systems and standardized English tests. Years ago, I trained in the Orton Gillingham approach to teaching remedial literacy, and tutored Autistic and ADHD students of all ages and levels in writing and creative output.
More recently, I have become the Treasurer of Out on the Shelves (OOTS), Vancouver’s oldest queer library, where I run Out on the Page, a weekly inclusive creative writing circle. This year, I’m particularly proud of my work at OOTS, where I have secured and facilitated a Chapman Innovation Grant from UBC Centre for Community Engaged Learning. The grant has allowed us to expand intersectionality in our collections, add foreign language materials, add identity affirming materials for children, and reach our community members through pop up libraries at Prides throughout the lower mainland and Fraser Valley. It has been a fantastic learning experience, and wonderful to connect to other members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ community that our library would not have been able to reach without funding.
I’m also grateful for the opportunities that UBC and the iSchool have provided for me to support, which include:
- community preferred vocabularies
- Indigenous scholarship and digitization for the Xwi7Xwa archives
- accessible arts and comics for blind and low vision readers
- body doubling initiatives
What is your definition of equity, diversity, and inclusion? How do you encourage people to honour the uniqueness of each individual? How do you challenge stereotypes and promote sensitivity and inclusion?
There’s a lot to unpack in this question. Equity and equality are often confused and are often explained by a version of this infamous image with the fences and stacked boxes (Elliott, 2023): 
Unfortunately, this image is fundamentally flawed, as it suggests that to achieve equity, some people fundamentally use more resources than others, and that we must take away something from someone and worsen their situation (in this case, the tallest person has to give up their box) so that the shortest person (who requires more resources) can reach parity. This infamous depiction fails to account for the fence (the systemic barrier) which impairs everyone’s experience, regardless of their height.
Unfortunately, this metaphor for equity has created a great deal of misunderstanding – it visually supports the idea that some people inherently need more than their fair share of resources, and that the only way to support them is to take something away from others who have more. Variations on this image continue to be co-opted to create resentment against EDI initiatives and fuel political disinformation campaigns.
These are not really depictions of equity and equality. Why are the people looking over the fence? If the (literal) barrier was removed, wouldn’t they all be able to find themselves much more comfortable positions in the stands?
Equity and equality are not two distinct pictures acting in opposition, but layered, complementary concepts.
Equality can be conceptualized as a top down result of grassroots advocacy. It is advocated for, and finally enshrined in rules and statutes by governing bodies and enforced by those in leadership positions. Equality protects fairness, and ensures that individuals are not denied opportunities because of aspects of their identity. We need legislation that provides for equality under the law and protects our fundamental rights and freedoms. For (most) Canadian adults, hard won fights for equality guarantee rights such as voting, marriage, and personhood.
Equity is recognizing that we are all individuals with different needs, who at different times and in different contexts, may experience barriers that impair our full participation in society. Equity involves addressing and dismantling those barriers and trying to meet individual needs, so that everyone can participate freely. Equity also recognizes that underrepresented groups bring incredible value to our community, and finds ways to specifically address the barriers and systems that continue to perpetuate underrepresentation. This can be mandated by a governing body, but implementing equity effectively is a collaborative, community process. And most importantly, at its heart, it does not conceptually involve taking from one group to give to another.
Diversity is the result of equity and equality. Without equality in prescribing access to education to all children, our universities would look very different than they do today. Without equity being a concern, many highly qualified individuals would never have the opportunity to attend. Diversity respects and includes individuals with different perspectives, backgrounds, and identities. In a diverse community, one engages with multiple perspectives outside of one’s own, and many different voices are represented.
How do you encourage people to honour the uniqueness of each individual?
For one, listen. People have amazing stories to tell!
I believe in encouraging empathy and finding common ground; we are all having a human experience.
How do you challenge stereotypes and promote sensitivity and inclusion?
It is a pervasive myth that inclusion and exclusion are somehow a binary and that inclusion is simply the opposite of exclusion.
This oversimplification suggests that by taking down Jim Crow era segregation signs we have suddenly achieved inclusion, or by adding a phrase like “Everyone welcome” to an event description, that we have miraculously created an environment where the people who we are trying to include will actually feel included: welcomed, safe, respected, comfortable to attend, and valued as contributing members of the community.
I also want to acknowledge that my particular research interests are deeply interwoven into accessibility and neuroaccessibility and so my biases and examples tend to heavily lean on these areas of focus.
Who really is “everyone” who is welcome?
An event may say everyone welcome, but is it at the top of the stairs with no elevator?
Will someone who needs to fidget or get up and move around be welcome? Are sensory supports available? Will people who need them face attitudinal and social barriers in their use?
Is the event behind the university paywall (restricted to students)?
Do participants have to disclose accessibility needs and go through a formal process to have them met?
Would the person who lives on the front steps of the library be welcome to attend?
Are there any obvious language, cultural, or religious barriers between potential attendees, presenters, and content?
Are dietary restrictions considered if food is served?
Individuals are unique and intersectional. People can feel included in some ways and not in others. Someone can be simultaneously grateful that their needs were considered because of flexible seating and low sensory escape spaces, while being frustrated that the History of the Caliphate from 632 – 1924 series kicks off with a lunch potluck on Ramadan. Inclusion efforts that lack community consultation do not necessarily include members of the community that they are trying to reach. This also fails to honour the unique intersectionality of each individual.
To be included is to feel welcomed, safe, respected, comfortable to attend, and valued as contributing members of the community.
Inclusion is complex and multidimensional. It is not a simple binary, but an ongoing negotiation, and it does not need to fall on any individual. It is a collective, shared responsibility of a healthy, diverse, and functional community.
Thoughtfully addressing inclusion means accepting that we are always learning, acknowledging that we will not always (or even often) get things 100% right, and coming to terms with the fact that inclusion is both ongoing work, and a communal responsibility for the group to negotiate together.
Fobazi Ettarh’s “vocational awe” has become a widely read piece of LIS literature and the term has entered the lexicon of the profession. She recently followed up with, ““The Future of Libraries:” Vocational Awe in a “Post-COVID” World” (co-authored with Chris Vidal). What does “vocational awe” mean for you as a graduate student entering a career in library and archives?
I am an aspiring librarian. I also happen to be a parent and a person with disabilities that cause daily fluctuations in my capacity. As such, I have reflected a great deal on my own motivations for choosing librarianship and on Fobazi Ettarh’s work on “vocational awe”.
It is important to remember that Ettarh wrote from an American, and very Western ideology, and while I would challenge some of the assertions that intertwine Christianity and democracy irrevocably with vocational awe, there is uncomfortable truth in Ettarh’s work, particularly as it relates to the observable impact of vocational awe on library professionals.
Vocational awe is not unique to librarianship, and it is not unique to democratic, historically Christian societies. Vocational awe exists in many professional contexts. For example, how many parents want their children to become doctors, in spite of 60 – 80 hour work weeks, record levels of burnout, and predictably poor work-life balance? While there are financial motivations, there is also vocational awe associated with the title and perceived social role of the Doctor as healer.
Countries in the global East and South also have public libraries, and in many places, Librarian is a title that carries the prestige associated with the literate class. Literacy itself is often associated with the sacred, with “goodness,” or with elevated class.
As a neurodivergent professional, I have an interesting relationship to vocational awe. My particular mind is wired to build expertise through deep exploration of relatively narrow special interests, three of which, information literacy, accessibility, and public service, align neatly with core values of librarianship. Because of how my brain happens to be wired, I am deeply passionate about this work, and find it professionally and intellectually fulfilling. Pursuing tasks which are personally meaningful within one’s work has been shown to reduce burnout (MacRae et al., 2026). But community experience suggests that neurodivergent employees are more likely to burn out than their neurotypical peers. Perhaps we are more prone to vocational awe?
Neurodivergent special interests can be so important to an individual’s professional fulfillment that they can take on a sacred dimension which can be compounded by and have similar consequences to vocational awe. It is easier for institutions to underpay and overwork neurodivergent employees who feel fortunate that they are able to pursue their special interests in their workplace. This is particularly the case when relevant employment opportunities are precarious, highly competitive, and hard to find.
My body and mind were not built for constant “whole self” participation in capitalist “hustle grind” culture, which prioritizes the cheap, the fast, and the production of “value” over community relationships, staff retention, and stakeholder quality of life. But upon this cultural backdrop, our library institutions are funded.
Unfortunately, this is compounded by a series of systemic problems. Vocational awe intersects with the ongoing erosion of third spaces and social supports in ways that harm both patrons and library workers. If the library is the last truly free indoor third space, how much stronger is the public perception of the library’s sacredness? The erosion of spaces and services adds additional pressure onto libraries and their workers to solve not just issues of literacy, but a growing heap of social issues that arrive on the library’s doorstep.
Regardless of whether or not we as individuals view librarianship as a job, a career, a sacred duty, or our life’s work, we cannot accept continuous scope creep within both our jobs and the library’s role in our community. We simply do not have the resources to do so.
Even in “sacred” spaces, there can be reform. And, as with Martin Luther and the church, reform comes from advocacy and challenges to existing structures and beliefs (that are failing the people who surround the institution).
Collectively and individually, we must advocate for ourselves and each other, be pragmatic, and draw clear boundaries as to what our libraries can realistically do, so that we can offer patrons our support and expertise in ways that are healthy and sustainable. I believe that we can set boundaries, and still serve our patrons and experience fulfilling careers. If we cannot do set boundaries, we are complicit in upholding systemic barriers which limit librarianship to abled individuals of certain social classes and backgrounds.
It is wonderful when institutions advocate for us, but we cannot anticipate that funding bodies and institutions that benefit from vocational awe will do so. This is not how we arrived at our current reality.
It brings to mind Frederick Douglass, who when speaking upon the emancipation of the West Indies, said,
“Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will. Find out just what
any people will quietly submit to and you have found out the exact measure
of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them. and these will
continue till they are resisted with either words or blows, or with both.” (Douglass, 1857).
How has diversity played a role in shaping how you communicate and interact with others in the workplace and as a student?
I feel fortunate to have grown up in a highly international coastal city. This background has offered opportunities to work in environments where English was not the primary language, and I have been privileged to build relationships with all kinds of people from across the globe. This has shaped who I am, the languages I’ve attempted to learn, the spiritual and cultural practices that are meaningful to me, and even my comfort foods: mapo tofu and sashimi are not exactly the foods of my ancestors!
To me, diversity is critical to experiencing different perspectives, and broadening one’s horizon of possibilities. It is a foundation on which healthy and supportive workplaces and educational spaces are built.
I am imperfect, and always learning, but I do my best to consciously listen and choose to center a community’s own voices. There is so much that we can learn from each other when we actively listen, reflect, and consider how it may be appropriate (or inappropriate) to respond.
In your experience, what challenges are faced by members of historically underrepresented groups in the workplace? And in academia?
These challenges are synthesized from both from my own experience in organizations that lacked diversity in leadership, and from the experiences colleagues have graciously shared with me. The challenges listed in this chart create cycles of burnout that result in highly qualified professionals needing to work harder and take on more tasks than their colleagues both to get and to keep their seat at the leadership table. An accessible, textual version follows below the flow chart image.
In your experience, what challenges are faced by members of historically underrepresented groups in the workplace? And in academia?
- Working twice as hard as their colleagues to get a seat at the leadership table.
- Discovering the seat was never designed to fit them, because they were expected to contort themselves into the colonial mold of the chair; realizing that their voices are ignored because “we have always done things this way”.
- Finding themselves taking on a disproportionate amount of emotional labour in educating colleagues and supporting other underrepresented workers or students, tasks that tend to be emotionally exhausting and not highly valued by the institution for career advancement opportunities.
- The pressure of being held up as “the model minority” and being viewed as a representative of a group rather than as an individual. Having their identity politicized and their credentials questioned; being negatively perceived as being hired for identity rather than expertise, despite impressive credentials.
- Disillusionment and burnout… (followed by recovery, and repetition of the same systemic problems that created the burnout in the first place).
What does a campus environment that is welcoming, inclusive, and increasingly diverse look like for you?
A campus environment that is truly welcoming, inclusive, and increasingly diverse:
- prioritizes EDI initiatives
- hires a faculty that is representative of a diverse student population and who bring diverse perspectives, heritages, cultural and religious backgrounds, physical abilities, neurotypes, and genders to their research and teaching practices
- celebrates record numbers of CFA (Centre for Accessibility) accommodations, because it means that more students who face educational barriers are receiving support and accessing post secondary education
- adequately funds low-barrier support services that are accessible to and inclusive of all members of the university community
- actively asks where community members are facing barriers on campus, and puts conscious, purposeful effort into dismantling these barriers
- provides funding and support for community led initiatives
- supports “own voices” in research by requiring that community specific research includes at least one PI (principle investigator) who is a member of that community
- involves community in consultation and research co-design so that research addresses community priorities and provides value to the community that is the subject of the research
- trains faculty and staff in pedagogical approaches that maximize flexibility in formal and informal learning settings, not just to accommodate students with disabilities, but to create space for those with differing responsibilities, pressures, and cultural needs to be able to fully participate in the university
- cultivates spaces that are accessible, sensory friendly, and flexible enough to adapt to differing needs
- treats accessibility as a communal responsibility to negotiate, rather than an individual burden to self-accommodate
- treats disability as a value-producing dimension of identity, and demonstrates this commitment by providing funding for a disability studies department, cluster, or mini-school
- offers access to intercultural learning opportunities so that community members can both understand their differences and connect through common interests
Are there any recommendations for books or articles that you recommend we learn more about? What are some titles that have shaped who you are?
On LIS (Library and Information Studies) Topics:
LIS interrupted: intersections of mental illness and library work [Available at UBC Library]
Catologuing culture: legacies of colonialism in museum documentation [Available at UBC Library]
Let’s talk about race in storytimes [Available at UBC Library]
Dr. Jordan Harrod’s es machina newsletter (on AI, feminism, and technology)
Hana Lee Goldin (MLIS)’s Card Catalog newsletter (on information literacy in the Age of AI)
On Writing and Grammar:
Style: ten lessons in clarity and grace [Available at UBC Library]
Eats, shoots & leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation [Available at UBC Library]
On Autistic Identity:
Self-care for autistic people. Dr. Megan Anna Neff
Supporting autistic girls and gender diverse youth. The Yellow Ladybugs
Unmasking Autism: discovering the new faces of neurodiversity [Available at UBC Library]
Graphic Novels:
Sensory: Life on the Spectrum: An Autistic Comics Anthology. Ed. Bex Ollerton
Kisses For Jet: A Coming-of-Gender Story. Joris Bas Backer. (a gender transition story from 1990’s Germany)
Ducks: two years in the oil sands [Available at UBC Library]
Carpe Fin: A Haida Manga [Available at UBC Library]
The Jellyfish (0n going blind) [Available at UBC Library]
Indiginerds: tales from modern indigenous life [Available at UBC Library]
Making non-fiction comics: a guide for graphic narrative. Eleri Harris & Shay Mirk.
Giga Town: A Guide to Manga Iconography. Fumiyo Kouno
References
Douglass, F. (1985). The significance of emancipation in the West Indies: An address delivered in Canandaigua, New York, on August 3, 1857. Frederick Douglass Papers Project. (Original work published 1857, August 3). https://frederickdouglasspapersproject.com/s/digitaledition/item/10509
Elliott, J. (2023, March 15). Equality vs. Equity: A Better Understanding. LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/equality-vs-equity-better-understanding-jessie-elliott/
MacRae, C., Nathan, L., & Adams-Brush, R. (2026, April 22–24). Beyond burnout: Brave conversations around resilience and sustainable librarianship [Conference session]. 2026 BC Library Conference, Richmond, BC, Canada. https://bclaconnect.ca/event/beyond-burnout-brave-conversations/