Marilyn Clarke has an MSc in Race and Ethnic Relations. She has worked at Senate House Library, Imperial College, London, and Goldsmiths, University of London where she held the posts of Head of Discovery Services in 2016, before being appointed as Director of Library Services in 2020. She currently works at IALS – Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London, the national research library for Law. She joined IALS as IALS Librarian in September 2022. She is a member of the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment team, and the Libraries Inclusivity Group.

At Goldsmiths, she led on many EDI (equity, diversity, and inclusion) initiatives including co-Chair of the Race Equality Charter Self-Assessment Team, co-Chair of the Goldsmiths Race Equality Group (Black and POC staff network), and member of the HR Equalities Committee. She led the Liberate our Library Working Group at Goldsmiths, a decolonisation initiative.

Over the last 6 years she presented on the theme of decolonisation of library collections and professional practices at several sector conferences, including: ALISS, NoWAL, BLA, ILI, ARLIS, LILAC, CILIP, CILIPS and BIALL.

She has written several professional articles on this subject (UKSG eNews, ALISS quarterly, ALJ, ILI 365, LIM), and two book chapters published in 2021. She was a member of the CILIP BAME Network Steering Group which led to the establishment of the CILIP BAME Network and Allies Network.

In January 2020, Goldsmiths co-delivered – alongside Birkbeck and UEL – and hosted the ‘Decolonising the curriculum: the library’s role’ conference, a first of its kind.

She focuses her work on delivering an inclusive service to all library users, leading on decolonisation initiatives, and highlighting issues around diversity, racial inequality, and the lack of Global Majority representation in libraries and HE, particularly at senior level.

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