Mission and Values

Mission

We are a culture and place of sustained and supported innovation. We are indispensable partners in the world-changing work of the university, as we continually reinvent the library as the platform that enables discovery, teaching, learning, health, invention, and creative expression.

Our mission is to support, enhance, and collaborate in the instructional, research, and service activities of faculty, students, and staff, and contribute to the common good by collecting, organizing, preserving, communicating, sharing, and creating the record of human knowledge.

Values

These values are intended to be aspirational while also guiding our day-to-day work and interactions. In sharing these values, we acknowledge the ongoing challenges of operating in a values-informed manner, and recognize that some may be in tension with one another. We also acknowledge these commitments necessitate that we continually learn, and that we move slowly and intentionally.

Excellence

Stay at the leading edge of redefining and reimagining the great research library in the context of an increasingly networked and digital world, while holding true to our broad and enduring mission. An integral part of this work is interrogating the notion of excellence and setting ethical, equitable, anti-racist standards for the research library that recognize who and what are left out of conventional ideas of excellence, innovation, or progress.

Engagement

Deepen our engagement with the core campus missions — discovery, learning, health care, and public service — by supporting and engaging in scholarship and pedagogy that embodies anti-racism as a core value. We understand that as an institution we have to work to be a trusted partner, and we commit to doing that work.

Diversity and Anti-Racism

Develop a community that is inclusive, diverse, and embraces difference. Support the institution’s goals related to anti-racism, and aim to support research that uses ethical approaches that do not further perpetuate harm on communities disproportionately affected by historic and systemic racism and neglect. As much as possible, we will work to dismantle entrenched racism and support work that takes reparative approaches to counteract that historical and ongoing harm.

Interdependence

Embrace interdependence and cultivate opportunities to collaborate internally with each other as "One Library," locally with campus partners and the communities we are embedded in, across our three campuses, and with our peers nationally and internationally.

Humanity

Embody integrity, compassion, empathy, inclusion, equity, anti-racism, and ethical behavior. Our humanity and commitment to these values will be embedded in every aspect of our services, our technologies, and our interactions with our communities.

 

Last updated: November 17, 2021