Throughout October we shared and engaged with a wide variety of resources in order to educate ourselves on issues affecting people of colour in celebration of Black History Month. Read our previous blogs, Black History Month: Expanding our minds and our Library resources and Black History Month: Read, Watch, Listen, Reflect to find out more. In addition to raising awareness, it’s important that we continue to learn and keep the conversation going.
A great way to do this is via our Black History Month reading list. There is a great mixture of print and digital resources for you to access and all online resources have helpful links for you to access directly from the list. If you’re not sure where to start we’ve pulled out some of our personal highlights for you to check out…
Reading for Pleasure
If you prefer a physical book as opposed to an electronic one, come and browse our Reading for Pleasure collection on the ground floor of Catalyst. This collection includes a great range of titles on a variety of subjects, and we’ve recently added lots of titles by Black authors. Whether you want to read contemporary fiction or non-fiction, you can use this comfy corner in the library to unwind.
If you’d prefer an eBook or audiobook, we recently launched our OverDrive service to supplement our Reading For Pleasure collection. There’s more information on OverDrive here and you can access it via your device using the Libby app, or via your browser. We’ve got a Black History Month collection, featuring Man Booker prize winners, Bernardine Evaristo with ‘Girl, Woman, Other’ and Aravind Adiga with ‘The White Tiger’. Why not download an audiobook and make the most out of your commute?
Non-Fiction
We’ve made lots of additions to our non-fiction too, with popular titles such as, ‘They can’t kill us all: the story of Black Lives Matter‘ and ‘The making of Black lives matter: a brief history of an idea.’ These titles provide background of the Black Lives Matter movement, in terms of the more recent #BlackLivesMatter ‘media and political phenomenon’ and also the history behind it, leading to this moment. ‘Stay woke: a people’s guide to making all Black lives matter’ seeks to inform and inspire, and in the memoir ‘My Name is Why’ the much-loved poet Lemn Sissay shares his personal story. For further recommended reading check out the reading list we’ve put together.
Film & TV
We’ve also added a section to our Black History Month reading list full of dramas for you to explore. Available via Box of Broadcasts, we’ve directly linked lots of film and TV showcasing black creative talent, so you can easily click through to view them. BoB is fully accessible to all staff and students and to search the diverse range of content on BoB, you can access it here.
Websites
For further reading, check out some of the websites linked to our reading list. They’re perfect if you want to dip into the resources on offer. We’ve included The National Archives – Black British history on record which helps individuals to discover documents within their collections, relating to ‘black British history’ and has helpful research guides. In addition to this the British Library’s Black Britain and Asian page showcases the collections they hold, in a variety of formats, on the experience of people of African, Asian and Caribbean heritage in Britain.
We hope you’ve found these resources engaging and inspiring. Please do share with us on social media, what you’re reading, watching, or listening to!