Future Mapping partnered with a professional association to help a library system deeply committed to offering diverse perspectives to its patrons but facing a significant challenge: a book collection that lacked that very breadth of representation. To address this, we began by asking two critical questions: Why was the collection lacking diversity, and what existing resources could the library leverage to rectify this? Our assessment, which included process mapping and stakeholder interviews, revealed key bottlenecks in the book acquisition process that inadvertently limited the inclusion of works by marginalized authors.

The identified bottlenecks centered on the library's sourcing methods and the absence of a proactive system for discovering new publications from non-mainstream authors. To overcome these obstacles, we facilitated the creation of a collaborative collective of industry professionals, including diverse writers, editors, publishers, and booksellers, to develop a new book selection process. This innovative approach was designed to ensure that a wider range of perspectives would directly inform the library's future book acquisitions process, with the aim of expanding their collection and more fully aligning with their core commitment to diverse voices and equitable access to information. Our engagement concluded with the establishment of this new process, setting the stage for adoption by the library system as a pilot program. Successful testing of this model would pave the way for potential national replication across other library systems.