Disability Studies library collection

Green Templeton is pleased to announce the creation of a new Disability Studies book collection to coincide with UK Disability History Month.

The collection includes inspirational stories of people living with disabilities such as Haben Girma’s memoir Haben: the deafblind woman who conquered Harvard Law and Rebekah Taussig’s Sitting pretty: the view from my ordinary resilient disabled body.

There are also books on how to support those with disabilities including Demystifying disability: what to know, what to say, and how to be an ally and Invisible conversations: how to use communication to support those with invisible disabilities. The books in the Disability Studies Collection are listed on SOLO, the University’s resource discovery tool. The SOLO tag gtc disability groups the books together and they can be borrowed by college members.

This initiative was led by Senior Tutor and college Disability Lead Dr Alison Stenton with support from Head of Library and Information Services Kirsty Taylor and Student Engagement Officer Allison D’Ambrosia.

Alison said, ‘I was inspired to start this library collection whilst tutoring on this year’s Medical Humanities Summer School, after we read an article on “Cripping, Queering and Unhoming the Health Humanities”.

‘When researching titles, I came upon the Oxford Student Union’s Disability Campaign’s collection curated for Disability History Month 2019. In this collection, many of the titles have been recommended by disabled readers and are largely written by disabled authors. We’ve added to this list and have tried to ensure that a wide range of disabilities are represented, and that intersectionality is given careful attention.

‘We hope this collection will encourage all of us to apply a critical eye to traditional or medicalised narratives of disability, and to more fully understand the lived experiences of disabled people.’

The collection was jointly funded from the college’s diversity and library budgets and titles were recommended by the Oxford Student Union Disability Campaign group and by the library team. It will continue to grow and evolve.

If you have any recommendations, please let the library team know.