The Institute for Racial Equity Advancement in Libraries (iREAL) is an initiative developed by Binghamton, the City University of New York and Rutgers University. iREAL will be a year-long hybrid immersion program that enables academic library workers to develop the skills and expertise necessary to understand, recognize, intervene, and dismantle racism in academic libraries. The Institute for Racial Equity Advancement in Libraries posits that the organizational culture in many of our academic libraries may need to change before the profession is successfully able to recruit and retain significantly more librarians and library workers of color. iREAL will also enable academic librarians and library workers to develop the skills and expertise necessary to lead organizational culture change towards providing a more welcoming environment for communities of color on campus.

At this point the collection reflects work done the week of August 7, 2023 at the Ithaka Headquarters in New York City for which members of the planning team, (Nancy Abashian (Binghamton), Kristin Hart (CUNY), Curtis Kendrick (Binghamton), Maura Smale (CUNY) and Simone Yearwood (CUNY)) met with experts in the field of race and libraries, (Jaena Alabi, Kawanna Bright, Nicole Cooke, Kaetrena Davis Kendrick, Isabel Espinal and Mark Puente) under the guidance of consultant Nicole Robinson from Cultural Competence by Design.