FY 23 Annual Report
Health Sciences Library System
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
Electronic Information Technology Accessibility
The Technology Integration Service Administrator role continues to provide support for HSLS to maintain compliance with Pitt’s EIT Accessibility Policy. This role was supported in part by hiring and training student captioning assistants for digital instructional content.
With HSLS’s new Instructional Designer role, accessibility best practices were reviewed and are becoming integrated with overall best practices for HSLS instructional services.
HSLS participated in the wider EIT accessibility discussion as a member of the University’s EIT Accessibility working group.
Representation and DEI Topics in HSLS Resources
Print Resources
Several new titles were added to the Medical Humanities collection:
- The viral underclass: the human toll when inequality and disease collide
- We’ll fight it out here: a history of the ongoing struggle for health equity
- Control: the dark history and troubling present of eugenics
- Never say invisible: a memoir of living and being seen with ALS
- Escaping wars and waves: encounters with Syrian refugees
- Deaf utopia: a memoir – and a love letter to a way of life
Electronic Resources
Journal titles “Health and human rights” and “Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health” were added to the e-journal collection.
Five books in the Culture of Health series from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation were added to the e-book collection.
“American Sirens: The Incredible Story of the Black Men Who Became America’s First Paramedics” was added to the Leisure Reading collection. An HSLS Update article further explored the history of the Freedom House paramedics.
Instruction and Professional Growth
HSLS hired and trained student captioning assistants for digital instructional content.
HSLS has representation on the UPSOM External Resources Task Force aimed at providing all students equal access to crucial external study resources, promoting equity in education.
HSLS has representation on the University’s Equity, Inclusion, and Anti-Discrimination Advocacy Committee and its disability advocacy working group.
HSLS organized classes on health equity research, social justice data, and All of Us research data to embed diversity, equity, and inclusion principles into health sciences education.
Librarians collaborated to offer educational sessions for the Social Medicine Fellows Program and the Pittsburgh Undergraduate Research Diversity Program.
An objective was set for HSLS staff to engage in diversity and inclusion training.
A new HSLS book club delved into articles about accessibility in higher education, expanding perspectives on inclusivity across multiple HSLS departments.
