Equity Resource Center & Collection
What You’ll Find
Designed with the help of the HCLS Racial Equity Alliance, community members and our expert selectors, the ERCC provides access to over 9,000 curated items on vital topics—such as the history of race and racism, the impact of discrimination on housing, education, and healthcare, and perspectives and voices of the diverse communities that make Howard County home.
The ERCC also serves as a vibrant meeting and classroom space. Fall and Spring classes and events support the educational aspirations of those in community seeking to build their capacity to advance equity in Howard County. It’s the perfect place for curious folks, activists, advocates, professionals, and community groups to network, learn together, share ideas, and deepen relationships.
Some titles in the ERCC are duplicated in our general collection, particularly popular titles, whereas other titles exclusively belong to the Equity Resource Center & Collection. However, all ERCC titles can be requested for pickup at any library branch.
HCLS continues to welcome and encourage collection suggestions from our community. Recommendations may be submitted via this form. Recommendations for classes and events can be submitted through our contact us form.
Ways to Engage
Join us at the Equity Resource Center & Collection (ERCC) for a variety of enriching classes and events designed to deepen your understanding of equity-related issues. Our offerings include book readings, workshops, author lectures, community discussions, and free trainings that cover a wide range of topics, from historical insights to contemporary challenges.
Stay updated on our latest offerings and be part of a vibrant community dedicated to building a more equitable and inclusive future.
The Equity Resource Center & Collection (ERCC) is proud to host a variety of compelling exhibits, both physical and virtual, that explore a wide range of contemporary and historical topics related to equity.
Designed to both educate and inspire, exhibits are often accompanied by book readings, classes, or events to enhance your experience.
In 2021, we featured the powerful “Undesign the Redline” exhibit, which you can still view virtually here. Dive deeper into the history of redlining and access valuable resources through this exhibit.
Stay tuned for our upcoming exhibits and join us in exploring the stories and perspectives that shape our community and beyond.
Stay up-to-date with the latest from the Equity Resource Center & Collection by subscribing to our monthly email newsletter. Each issue features:
Resource Highlight: Discover resources from our extensive collection.
Classes & Events: Get information on upcoming classes and events.
Community Highlights: Learn about inspiring Howard County residents who champion equity and other special features.
Learning Hub
Elementary School
The ERCC has over 600 titles, including picture and story books that celebrate diversity, inclusion and belonging, as well as world cultures. Families will also find resources to introduce children to equity topics like race, gender, and disability in ways that are comfortable and age appropriate. Search the children’s collection here.
Middle & High School
The ERCC has a over 400 fiction and non-fiction works perfect for middle and high schoolers who wish to explore equity topics that ring true to their lives. Search the collection here.
New to equity work? Here are a few books to get you started:
- Demystifying disability: what to know, what to say, and how to be an ally
- Disability visibility: first-person stories from the twenty-first century
- Waking up white: and finding myself in the story of race
- The myth of race: the troubling persistence of an unscientific idea
- The good immigrant: 26 writers reflect on America
- The next great migration: the beauty and terror of life on the move
- Entitled: how male privilege hurts women
- The women’s suffrage movement
- Man enough: undefining my masculinity
- The gay revolution: the story of the struggle
- Young queer America: real stories and faces of LGBTQ+ youth
- We need to talk about antisemitism
- American Islamophobia: understanding the roots and rise of fear
- Ageism unmasked: exploring age bias and how to end it
- The person you mean to be: how good people fight bias
- What if I say the wrong thing?: 25 habits for culturally effective people
Looking to grow your knowledge beyond basic concepts? These books fit the bill:
- The color of law: a forgotten history of how our government segregated America
- White fragility: why it’s so hard for White people to talk about racism
- One Mighty and Irresistible Tide
- The Undocumented Americans
- We Should All Be Feminists
- The mask of masculinity: how men can embrace vulnerability, create strong relationships, and live their fullest lives
- Sissy
- The deviant’s war: the homosexual vs. the United States of America
- How to fight anti-Semitism
- The other Islam: Sufism and the road to global harmony
- Normal sucks: how to live, learn, and thrive outside the lines
- Face: one square foot of skin
- The end of bias: a beginning: the science and practice of overcoming unconscious bias
- Right within: how to heal from racial trauma in the workplace
Ready to go deep? These books explore “outside-the-box” thinking and will likely challenge what you think you know about equity:
- The sum of us: what racism costs everyone and how we can prosper together
- The end of race politics: arguments for a colorblind America
- The warmth of other suns: the epic story of America’s great migration
- Not “A Nation of Immigrants“
- Inventing Latinos: a new story of American racism
- Hood feminism: notes from the women that a movement forgot
- Amateur: a true story about what makes a man
- Real queer America: LGBT stories from red states
- Gay New York: gender, urban culture, and the making of the gay male world, 1890-1940
- People love dead Jews: reports from a haunted present
- Paradise lost: Smyrna 1922: the destruction of a Christian city in the Islamic world
- Against technoableism: rethinking who needs improvement
- The adversity of diversity: how real unity training can promote healing in a post-affirmative action world
- The diversity bonus: how great teams pay off in the knowledge economy