Strength and diversity through co-creation and curation in library and archive settings
July 17th 2025.
July 17th 2025.
This afternoon event showcased a range of practical projects where library and archive services are harnessing the perspectives and expertise of their current and potential user communities to create more appropriate and better collections and services for all
- The Student Curator Project: Creating connections through collections and beyond – Catherine Batson and Ivana Jurisic, University of Surrey
Since 2018 Library and Learning Services at the University of Surrey have been running a collaborative staff-student partnership project based around the collections and resources in the Library. The motivation was to celebrate diversity and inclusion at Surrey, to expand and showcase the diversity of Library collections. The Library team have been working alongside the Students’ Union at Surrey to promote, encourage, and celebrate the diversity of our student population and that of the Library’s collections, whilst at the same time empowering students financially, creatively, and intellectually, and developing real world skills such as project, budgetary, and team management. Themes we have covered are Black History Month, LGBT+ History Month, Invisible Disability Awareness, Talking about Mental Health, Healthy Learning, Empowering Women, Colourism, Life as I know it, Sustainability, Autism Awareness and Pride and Change.
The team at Surrey have learnt considerable amount around student-staff partnerships, what a fantastic opportunity it is to work closer with our students, how creative they are and supportive of creating a sense of belonging and understanding. How the lived experiences of our students directly impact on their engagement with teaching materials and feeling of inclusion at University. How important this is to help bridge the attainment gap and raise the profile of student voice within the institution. This talk covered the evolution of the projects, approaches taken by Student Curators, what partnership means to us and reflections from the library team and some of our students. - Accessible Research Spaces – Barriers, Opportunities, and Learning from Each Other. Ann-Marie Foster, IWM
https://www.iwm.org.uk/research/accessible-pasts-equitable-futures - view the slides
- What makes a research space accessible to disabled, chronically ill, and/or neurodivergent users? Users of research materials across the libraries, archives, and museums sectors all face common issues in research rooms, study spaces, and when accessing specialist materials. Taking findings from two ongoing projects, ‘Accessible Pasts, Equitable Futures’ and ‘Divergent Minds in the Archive’, this talk highlighted common problems, considered solutions, and offers a space to reflect on how we talk about best practice across and between the sectors, as we all work towards the common goal of trying to provide better access.
- Liberate the Library: co-production and collaboration with students at the University of Sheffield
Rhian Stephenson, University of Sheffield - view the slides
The Creative Library (Liberate the Library) Project was an AHRC-RLUK Professional Practice Fellowship Project which ran through the 2023-24 academic year and explored information creation as a process. This critical information literacy project was co-produced in partnership with the University’s Students’ Union Liberation Officers and aimed to disrupt knowledge hierarchies by positioning students from marginalised groups as active knowledge creators, in creative workshops organised in the Digital Commons, the library’s developing academic makerspace. In 2025 work on the Creative Library Project was moved into business as usual, via Lib Fest, a year-long festival of events focused on liberating the library. Lib Fest aims to build on work to celebrate the liberation priorities of our students, include previously missing voices in our university libraries, promote collaborative working, co-creation and interdisciplinary dialogue and enhance access to digital creativity through an ongoing University Library and Students’ Union partnership. Along with creative workshops, the festival includes exhibitions, curated collections, reading groups, and a decolonising your literature searching workshop.This presentation highlights the approaches taken to co-production and collaboration in the Creative Library Project and Lib Fest, challenges faced in times of financial constraints, lessons learnt and future plans for continuing and developing a collaborative approach to liberating the library both sustainably and ethically -
The Fitba Research Club,.
Dora Petherbridge, curator, National Library of ScotlandThis talk explored some of the challenges for research libraries undertaking co-curated and co-produced community research projects by way of a discussion of Fitba Research Club, a football history research project celebrating football’s roots, culture and heritage. The project, run at the National Library of Scotland in 2023/24, brought together a team of young adult community curators from minoritised communities to explore the story of Andrew Watson, Scotland’s – and the world’s – first Black international football captain. The Fitba Research Club’s community curators developed research skills and information literacy to explore a rich history of sporting achievement and to create the Andrew Watson’s XI, an all-star fantasy team of Black footballers and footballers of colour who played in Scotland.
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