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Home>Advocacy/Campaigns>Love Libraries – Case Studies>Love Libraries – School libraries and students celebrate successful anti-racism project

Love Libraries – School libraries and students celebrate successful anti-racism project

Image of school workshop taking place in a library hall.

School librarians have worked with students to develop an anti-racism toolkit and increase the diversity of books on offer, as part of efforts to ensure the service is more inclusive and reflective of its users and community.

Edinburgh’s ‘This Library is for Everyone’ project was rolled out to all high school libraries by June 2024 and every school librarian has received anti-racism training, which included unconscious bias.

Image of poster board artwork on a wall with colour paper and red trees on paper.

All high schools also received £500 to spend on books and diversify their collections. School libraries in the city are run by City of Edinburgh Council.

Schools also signed a pledge stating: “We want our community to feel welcoming and for our borrowers to recognise themselves in the books on our shelves.”

Image of two young girls chatting about the project in a workshop environment.

Challenging

The initiative was led by pupils, with library staff holding focus groups with pupils about whether they saw themselves reflected in their libraries and their contents. The young people were also asked to recommend books.

The adults were determined not to shy away from challenging conversations, to ensure the project was a success.

Library staff also examined data on religious and ethnic make-up in Edinburgh’s schools. This indicated more than 15 ethnic groups and that pupils speak more than 20 languages, with five dominant religions.

Image of a circle of children, artists and musicians crouched down in a hall.

Workshops

A successful launch day was held in February 2024, with diverse workshops involving young people from schools across the city. A special poem about diversity, For All My Reading Groups, was also commissioned – you can see this poem below. This was written by award-winning poet Roshni Gallagher, who was one of the staff involved in the project.

Workshops included experimental music with Tinderbox Collective, a creative art session and an African storytelling session with Gift Amu.

Image of school workshop taking place in a library hall with banner and presentation screen behind them.

Connections

The project will have a number of lasting benefits, including simplifying access to relevant resources, improved knowledge about stock, different cultures and the pupils using the libraries, and the development of connections.

Focus groups will be ongoing to ensure an open dialogue continues with pupils and partners, plus further cultural workshops are planned.
City of Edinburgh Council’s library team is also hopeful of rolling out a similar project for public libraries.

Learn more about Edinburgh’s libraries at edinburgh.gov.uk/libraries.

Poem 'For All My Reading Groups.' For All My Reading Groups In every English class, for seventeen years, I never read about someone like me. And so, there was a diminishing, that followed me into every room, down every street, in the shape of a feeling, or a language, or a life. That grew into the space between myself and the person they saw when they looked at me. And I was almost fooled into thinking that that was the way it should be. Almost let myself slip away down those blank streets. But this light was always waiting for me – in books that opened the door to myself. In small rooms with narrow bookshelves, in a community of people steeped in their own forgotten histories. And we read about manatees and mangrove. Tasted the sweet zing of mango, pomelo, and jackfruit. Flew through Edinburgh on the wings of a parakeet, felt a far-off breeze melt the snow on Arthur’s Seat. And we remembered ourselves together. Found out voices in each other. In Zephaniah and Mann, in Blackman and Kuang. And I see the me from years ago, belonging here, like a bird in the blossoming trees or like each bright wave on Portobello beach.