Kayleen Jones, Education and Human Service Professions Librarian at the University of Minnesota–Duluth’s (UMD) Kathryn A. Martin Library, was named a 2025 Library Journal Mover & Shaker for her work creating the Antiracist Literary Advisory Board. Together with her library colleagues and the UMD Education faculty, Jones created a platform for Education students to learn about identifying needs around representation in children’s publishing and exploring ways to fill them. LJ spoke with Jones about the genesis of the project, and how it impacted those who participated.

LJ: Can you talk a bit about what led up to your focus on representation in children’s lit?

Kayleen Jones: The statistics about diversity in children’s book publishing collected by the Cooperative Children’s Book Center at the University of Wisconsin–Madison have been a call to action for me as I develop and manage the children’s literature collection at UMD. Specifically, that there are more animal or anthropomorphized object main characters than BIPOC main characters in children’s books. The Education students and faculty I work with are also interested in representation in children’s books. Focusing on representation in the Antiracist Literary Advisory Board was a way to bring all of our interests together and to take meaningful collective action.

How did you work with your various partners to create the Antiracist Literary Advisory Board? What kind of buy-in did it need, and how did you get the necessary people on board?

The faculty approached me and were interested in an experiential learning opportunity for their students, future teachers, at a time when I was ready to dig into collection evaluation and was looking for library users’ input. It was serendipitous timing. My library colleagues were amazing and jumped right into helping me figure out logistics and process. Their support was pivotal to the success of the Antiracist Literary Advisory Board. The Education faculty recruited Education students and brought their teaching expertise to the project to make it a high-impact learning experience for the students. The students were so open, curious, and enthusiastic. They helped us shape what the evaluation work looked like.

What was the outcome in terms of student learning? How about your colleagues and the education faculty? 

We built a community with lasting relationships. We support each other in this continuous work. Students gained confidence in their children’s book evaluation skills that they are using in their classrooms, schools, and communities. Personally, the relationships that were developed during this collaboration are some of the most meaningful in my professional career so far.

What do you wish others in the field knew about the work you do?

It’s not hard to find books that represent a wide variety of lived experiences, but you do have to be intentional about looking for them. Two resources I reference and use regularly in my work with children’s literature are the Cooperative Children’s Book Center and Diverse BookFinder.

What are you working on now? 

Building on the work that was started by the Antiracist Literary Advisory Board, I’m continuing evaluation of the children’s literature collection at UMD.