The UVA Library’s Inclusive Excellence Plan

Introduction

If we aggregate all non-white categories, the University Library’s staff is notably less diverse (at about 16%) than that of the University (20+%) which in turn is notably less diverse than the population of the state of Virginia (30+%). These numbers only reflect racial/ethnic diversity, and of course there are other dimensions as well, where tallies are not so readily available in institutional dashboards: LGBTQ staff, neuro-diverse staff, and staff with disabilities, to name a few. 

The Library has staff expertise in polling and data analysis, and we take regular climate surveys. Surveys administered as part of the Library’s Inclusive Excellence process told us that the majority of our staff think the Library is a good place to work — but what we were after was an understanding of how a minority of the population feels, so we followed up with a variety of opportunities for small group conversations with staff members from the Library’s Inclusive Excellence (IE) Task Force and its standing committee on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA). Staff participated broadly in gathering information as well as in providing it, and the results of this qualitative phase told us that we had long-standing unaddressed issues in our organizational culture that made the Library a difficult, unwelcoming, and even hostile place to work for some among us — including those who felt that LGBTQ issues were being ignored and those who felt that the Library only tolerated a narrow band of political opinion. 
Over a number of years, different University Library administrations have made efforts to improve inclusion and diversity both in the short and the long term, but with little tangible impact to date on job satisfaction in key demographics. For example, although the UVA Library was one of the first in its national peer group to create and hire a full-time director of diversity, equity, and inclusion, that person retired at the beginning of the pandemic and a successor has not yet been hired. Pipeline programs have languished as a result: three years ago, the Library participated in the Association of College & Research Libraries’ Residency program, which resulted in the hiring of two Librarians into term positions. Both have successfully gone on to good jobs in the library profession, but the Residency program is on hold until the hire of a new director, as is our two-week summer program for minority high-school juniors and seniors interested in librarianship. 

Given even this abbreviated context, the Library clearly faces challenges and opportunities across all the dimensions of Inclusive Excellence. We run technical and intellectual infrastructure that provides access to the information and expertise necessary for education and scholarship. We have climate and intergroup problems, and we have both successes and failures that we could point to, when it comes to community engagement. We have taken the opportunity offered by Inclusive Excellence to review our services, our collections, our spaces, our technology, and our organizational culture. The IE Task Force has done most of the work of producing this report, but the IDEA Committee has been developing competence with respect to some fundamental best practices, including how to recruit and retain diverse staff. They will begin by assisting in the search for a new Library DEI Director. All of this will in turn take place in the context of a Library-wide effort to reconsider its mission, its operations, and its culture in light of the urgent need to address racism in all of America’s systems and organizations, not least those that shape our thinking — as libraries do. 

Meanwhile, the Library has successfully undertaken three important initiatives in the last few years, each of which generally improves equity and increases job opportunities. The first is a systematic equity review of compensation for all Library staff. This was initially delayed by the implementation of Workday, and then again by the pandemic, but we have now reviewed half of the Library staff salaries and we have made substantial adjustments to many of them. We believe this will help us demonstrate that we value our staff and we reward them equitably, a necessary step in attracting and retaining excellent and diverse staff, nationwide. Second, we have instituted a new career ladder in the ranks of professional librarians, where no differentiation previously existed. Years of staff feedback told us that there was a lack of opportunity for career advancement in the previous job structure: our implementation of this change also was dependent to a certain extent on larger changes ongoing in University HR. Third, there is now a Library track in the Academic General Faculty, which will allow us to appropriately recognize and promote Library staff when their work is research and/or teaching*.  This also helps to make us competitive in recruiting among our national peer group, and should help us to reward and retain staff, including diverse staff, with national and international profiles. 

These concrete successes are encouraging, and they will help us to recruit and retain a diverse workforce, but only if we become an inclusive organization. Inclusive Excellence is a starting point, and the Library’s report outlines goals and strategies in each of IE’s areas as they apply in our part of the University and the world. This report will face some skepticism in our own ranks, and not without reason: we have proclaimed our principles in the past and called for change without making it. We not only have to implement this plan but also track the change to our culture. Our metrics may need revision to capture impact, and we need to measure our progress regularly. Most importantly, if we do not see improvement toward a more inclusive organization, we will need to revisit our strategies and develop new ones. The staff (including senior leadership) who have contributed to this report all know that unless we follow through with a sustained and shared effort to change our Library culture for the better, this report will not matter. We think we can do better than that though, in part because of the end of the pandemic. Like staff in most in-person organizations, the Library’s staff has never had a year off from one another, and the return to in-person work offers an unprecedented opportunity to reset organizational culture, which is what we mean to do.  

Finally, it should also be noted that in the process of developing the goals and actions that make up the Library’s Inclusive Excellence report, we realized that we are thinking of the challenges we face as things that we have to solve on our own, instead of thinking about the existing programs, partnerships, and pathways that the University and the community have already created. In other words, we are insular in our perspective, and in many cases the first thing we need to do is to understand the work that has already been done, and that we haven’t been drawing on, at least in recent years. If nothing else, we hope that the experience of compiling this report will save us from re-inventing wheels, ignoring predecessors and pathbreakers, or accidentally disrupting existing partnerships.

*Faculty tracks in the Library have a history of provoking a sense of inequity in the ranks, but Library Administration thinks it important to classify positions as faculty when the work involved fits the description of that track. This matters for reasons of governance and representation, recruiting and retention, and also the evaluation of impact. According to this list of academic libraries sorted by whether they offer faculty positions, nearly ten times as many such libraries have some kind of faculty status (239) as don’t (28).  

Credits

The work represented in this report was done by two groups: the Inclusive Excellence Task Force and the Library’s standing committee on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accessibility (IDEA). Each group met 22 times during the June 2020 to June 2021 time period. On the Task Force, all meetings were devoted to producing this report; for the IDEA Committee, many were. Many of these people spent significant time and effort outside of meetings to gather information, draft documents, do research, and lead efforts to change our Library culture. Members of both groups are listed below, with chairs parenthetically identified and members of the Library’s Senior Leadership Team italicized. Important administrative support for both groups was provided by Sunny Taylor and October Edwards from the Office of the University Librarian and Kathy Soule from Project Management and Training.

The Inclusive Excellence Task Force

Veronica Fu, East Asian Collections Librarian
Patrick Garcia, Major Gifts & Grants Officer in Library Advancement
Elyse Girard, Executive Director of Communications and User Experience
Brenda Gunn, Associate University Librarian, Special Collections and Preservation (co-chair)
Debra Guy, Public Spaces and Special Events Manager
Meg Kennedy, Curator for Material Culture
Anthony Lindsay, Data Analyst in Library Assessment
Cecelia Parks, Undergraduate Student Success Librarian
John Unsworth, Dean of Libraries (co-chair)
Penny White, Reference Librarian
Mark Witteman, Integrated Library Systems Engineer

The IDEA Committee

Eze Amos, Technical Lead, Digital Production Group
Joseph Azizi, Library Stacks Coordinator, Special Collections
Suzanne Bombard, Training Specialist
Ruth Dillon, Project Manager
Meredith Gillet, Associate Director for Annual Giving
Robin Mitchell, Executive Director of Advancement (co-chair)
Rose Oliveira, Accessioning Archivist
Regina Rush, Reference Librarian
Mira Waller, Associate University Librarian, Research & Learning Services (co-chair)
Meridith Wolnick, Director, Teaching and Learning

Appreciation is also due to the many Library staff who engaged with the work of their colleagues as it was being drafted, offering suggestions and posing questions that improved the final result. For reasons of brevity, audience, and focus not all of that input is reflected in this document, but all of it has been captured and substantive issues not addressed here will be separately published and addressed within the Library, in a coda to the Inclusive Excellence process.

Signatories

The report as submitted has been reviewed and approved by Library Administration:

  • John Unsworth, Dean of Libraries, University Librarian, Professor of English
  • Carla Lee, Deputy University Librarian
  • Donna Tolson, Associate Dean for Administration

and by the rest of the Library’s Senior Leadership Team:

  • Elyse Girard, Executive Director of Communications and User Experience
  • Brenda Gunn, Associate University Librarian, Special Collections and Preservation
  • Stan Gunn, Executive Director of Information Technology
  • Robin Mitchell, Executive Director of Advancement
  • Carmelita Pickett, Associate University Librarian, Scholarly Resources & Content Strategy
  • Mira Waller, Associate University Librarian, Research & Learning Services

Signed,


John Unsworth


Dimension 1: Access and Success

2030 Vision: Recruit and support exceptionally talented, diverse, and service-oriented students. Recruit, support, and retain excellent and diverse faculty and staff.

The Library’s standing Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) Committee worked on this first dimension of the Inclusive Excellence Plan and contributed it to the overall effort being led by the Inclusive Excellence (IE) Task Force. The IE Template for this dimension notes that it “refers to the compositional diversity among the organization's constituent groups (staff, faculty, students, visitors, patients, alumni, customers, community partners, etc.) and their context-specific outcomes or benefits gained from their relationships with the organization. Processes like recruitment, retention, development, and long-term outcomes (graduation, tenure, career advancement, etc.) are the key focus of this dimension. Questions we asked in this dimension cover a number of topics:

  • Recruitment: How do we invite people to join us?
  • Admissions & Hiring: Who gets to be here?
  • Advising & Career Ladders: How do we provide support?
  • Graduation & Career Outcomes: Who benefits and how?

We gave this dimension to a standing diversity committee in the Library because we want that committee to become the Library’s repository of expertise and documentation of best practices in recruitment, hiring, and retention of a diverse Library staff. 

Goal 1: Increase diversity in Library hiring

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: Working with University HR, the Talent Community of Expertise, and the Office of Equal Opportunity and Civil Rights, the Library will review current recruitment and interviewing practices and solicit feedback from recent hires and recent search committee members.

  • Percentage of diverse applicants represented at each stage of the recruiting process
  • Outcomes of offers made to diverse candidates
  • 2021-2022
  • IDEA Committee
  • Library HR Business Partner
  • Senior Leadership Team

 

  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will collaborate with University HR and the Talent Community of Expertise to develop strategies for recruiting more diverse talent. 

  • Percentage of diverse applicants represented at each stage of the recruiting process
  • Outcomes of offers made to diverse candidates
  • 2021-22: IDEA Committee works with UHR and EOCR to learn and document training and best practices for hiring
  • 2022-2025: Library Managers implement these practices in their hiring
  • IDEA Committee
  • Library HR Business Partner
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time for training
  • Travel
  • Event costs
  • Costs for posting on job boards

Goal 2: Retain a diverse workforce
(See also the Climate and Intergroup Relations dimension of this report)

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will form an Employee Onboarding Team of no more than eight members** and develop a program that begins with a strategic introduction of new employees to those they will need to interact with most.  Biannual general Library overviews will be provided for new employees.

  • Survey new employees within their first year about the effectiveness of the Library’s on-boarding process
  • Solicit suggestions for improvement
  • End of 2021: the team will be formed
  • July 2022: the first welcome program for new employees will be held
  • Will occur every six months
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time
  • Event costs

Action 2: The Library will create a new employee resource page on Confluence that provides professional development resources and career opportunities within the UVA Library and the library profession.

  • Monitor use through analytics
  • Include a question about its usefulness in the annual survey of new Library staff
  • July 2021: The new employee Confluence page will be completed
  • Organizational Learning and Development in Library Administration
  • Staff time

Action 3: The Library will hire a diverse student workforce and increase the economic diversity of Library student workers by hiring more Federal Work Study students.

  • Track the diversity of the student workforce, including the percentage of student workers with Work Study support
  • Fall of 2021: Tracking will begin
  • Student Supervisors
  • Library Administration
  • Staff time
  • Support for supervisors

Action 4: The Library will provide both horizontal career paths and career ladders in addition to those provided at the University level.

  • Track use of the new horizontal career paths over time
  • 2022-2023
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • University HR, Talent Community of Expertise
  • Library Managers
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • University HR, Talent Community of Expertise
  • Staff time

**The Employee Onboarding Committee would include both stakeholders and volunteers. Stakeholders would include a representative from the Events Team, Administration and Planning, Information Technology, and Library Staff Council. Volunteers (up to four) would represent SLT areas and could include the “Onboarding Buddy” from the department. Stakeholders could serve for up to two years; volunteers would serve for one year.

Dimension 2: Climate + Intergroup Relations

2030 Vision: Continuously promote and strengthen an inclusive community of trust, a culture of integrity, mutual respect, excellence, collaboration, and innovation. 

This dimension refers to what it feels like for individuals to work in the Library and the behavioral experiences and norms that are present. Evaluating the collective experience of the Library community is complex and based on individuals’ perceptions. To be specific and intentional in this dimension, we have reflected on our organizational behaviors, examined our strengths, and studied our strategic opportunities with a focus on staff members’ experiences of respect, career development and growth, empowerment and intergroup connections. Both past and recent staff climate survey results have provided a broad sense of staff members’ individual feelings and experiences and 2021 targeted surveys and listening sessions refined our understanding. We have paid equal attention to prevailing and non-prevailing thoughts and analyzed the available data and information to identify priorities. The following table distills these priorities into five goals with accompanying specific action plans and measurable results.

 

Goal 1: Encourage and foster diversity, equity and inclusion in the culture of the Library

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1:  In partnership with EOCR, the Library’s Senior Leadership Team will establish a Library Code of Conduct that emphasizes respectfulness in all workplace interactions. SLT will share the draft with Library staff, so they can provide feedback and suggestions before SLT finalizes the document with EOCR.

  • All staff annually confirm that they have read and understood the Library’s Code of Conduct; also measured through specific questions about inclusivity and microaggressions on the Library’s annual climate survey
  • Will use UVA’s Respect@ program to hold people accountable for disrespect, including sexist, racist, homophobic, ableist, and ageist behavior
  • Align with self-assessment schedule (calendar year)
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • EOCR
  • Library Managers
  • Library Staff 

 

  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will provide programs on implicit bias and other subjects that promote cultural competencies and a workplace culture where all staff discourage exclusionary or disrespectful behavior including but not limited to race, gender, sexuality, age, ability, and neurodiversity. Annual performance reviews should reflect participation in at least one such program, under the Understanding Difference goal.

  • Increased staff participation rate over time
  • 2022: Understanding Difference goal-setting
  • DEI Director
  • IDEA Committee
  • Library Administration and Planning
  • Library Managers and Supervisors
  • Fees for training
  • Fees for speakers

 

Goal 2: Increase the level of respect staff experience within departments and throughout the Library

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will build on the work of the Communication team’s etiquette pages to establish Library standards for methods of communication, use of communications channels, methods of address, and timeframes for responses (see Communications Toolkit, Basic Slack Etiquette for Library Staff, etc.). 

  • Satisfaction expressed in questions about interpersonal staff communication on the Library climate survey
  • 2022: Starts in conjunction with the annual staff survey (spring)
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Communications
  • Needs buy-in from Library Managers
  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will work with the IDEA Committee, Library Assessment, and Library Staff Council to develop new climate survey questions on diversity and inclusion. The climate survey will be supplemented with listening sessions. 

  • Trends over time in survey results
  • Beginning with the next Library Staff Climate Survey, LSC and Library Administration develop survey questions on diversity and inclusion
  • IDEA Committee assists in the listening sessions. Repeat in years 3 and 5.
  • Library Staff Council
  • IDEA Committee
  • Library Assessment Team
  • Staff time

 

Goal 3: Increase positive staff interactions through the establishment and promotion of workshops, mentorship and advising

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will develop the IDEA Committee as a staff advisory group for DEI training and goals.

  • Offer regular staff training related to DEI initiatives with external instructors
  • June 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • DEI Director
  • IDEA Committee
  • Fees for workshops
  • IDEA Committee members’ time

Action 2: The Library will establish a formal mentoring program and encourage staff at all career stages to seek out mentoring from the Library, the University and external mentoring programs.

  • Participation in the Library, University, and external mentoring programs
  • 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Administration and Planning
  • University HR
  • Staff time

Goal 4: Empower and encourage staff at all levels

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will charge the IDEA Committee with developing guidelines to ensure equitable and diverse representation on committees and establish transparent nomination processes.

  • Diversity of committee memberships will be assessed annually by the IDEA Committee and the Senior Leadership Team
  • 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • DEI Director
  • IDEA Committee
  • Fees for workshops
  • IDEA Committee members’ time

Action 2: The Library will establish short-term leadership or project management assignments to empower staff, building on the success of the pre-pandemic Summer Leadership Program.

  • Opportunities for three non-managerial staff to head a divisional initiative are provided each year
  • 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time

 

Goal 5: Acknowledge and support the growth of intergroup connections

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will highlight the routine work as well as the special projects our colleagues accomplish in all-staff meetings and in staff newsletters.

  • A rotating staff spotlight is established
  • 2021
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Communications
  • Library Managers
  • Library Staff
  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will budget annually for low-cost informal team-building opportunities at the departmental level.

  • Annual spending on informal team-building opportunities 
  • 2022, ongoing
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Managers
  • Event Costs

Dimension 3: Education + Scholarship

2030 Vision: Enable faculty, staff, and students to work across traditional boundaries and prepare servant-leaders to shed new light on enduring and profound questions in our diverse community and globally connected world.

We began the process of developing goals in this dimension by asking simple questions: who is and is not using Library resources, collections, services, and spaces? What do we collect? What types of research do we support and how? We were largely unable to answer these questions based on existing data collected by the Library and University. We struggled to answer these questions when broken down by the categories central to Inclusive Excellence work, such as race, gender, age, disability, sexuality, and status. But even though answering these questions is crucial to our Inclusive Excellence and other IDEA work, we should consider whether a technological solution to the gaps in quantitative data is the best choice. To begin with, there are questions of privacy, consent, and surveillance that the Library is already confronting in other contexts. We are also aware that the institutional data that might be available to us may not be complete enough to be accurate. Nonetheless, collecting baseline data as the first step in the process is crucial for measuring improvements in Library engagement with historically underserved communities over time. Therefore, we will begin with an emphasis on personal interaction, while we analyze existing data resources and consider what open, voluntary, and ethical steps we might take in the future to track the impact of our collections and services online. 

Goal 1: Increase Library engagement with historically underserved communities through more inclusive services, spaces, collections, and events

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will gather and review data that it has already collected that will help us understand where gaps and inconsistencies exist. Going beyond internal data collection, the Library will seek to collaborate with campus partners to identify and review existing data. These efforts may also help us understand when we are reaching new student, faculty and external underserved communities — for example, new users, new search topics, web referring page stats etc.

  • Library-wide staff involved in various data collection will study our data policy and implementation reports available, to identify informative data trends over time
  • Fall 2021
  • Library staff involved in data collection
  • Staff time
  • Event costs

Action 2: The Library will conduct qualitative assessments, including focus groups, surveys, and interviews with representatives from historically underserved communities. These groups should include representatives from within (including students and faculty) as well as from the Charlottesville/Albemarle County community members.

  • Summarized and anonymized assessment results will be posted on Confluence and shared directly with relevant groups, to be used to develop strategies in Action 4.
  • Spring 2022: assessment begins after hiring DEI Director
  • Library Assessment
  • IDEA Committee
  • Staff working group
  • Staff time
  • Funds for assessment incentives

Action 3: The Library will review and create a plan for future data collection, including the possible implementation of standard data collection parameters. This will include timelines for reporting across Library units.

  • Development and publication of plan for future data collection and review
  • Fall of 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Information Technology
  • Library Assessment
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time

Action 4: The Library will develop strategies to create and foster inclusive collections, spaces, and services through outreach by Library Liaisons and other units, and through regular consultation with non-library representatives from the relevant communities with the goal of involving them as central stakeholders.

  • Strategies are published on Confluence
  • Strategies are also included in the annual report produced by Communications
  • 2022: begin publishing strategies by the end of the spring semester
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Communications
  • Library Managers
  • Possible cross-unit working group
  • Staff time

Goal 2: Implement strategies developed in Goal 1, establishing avenues for long-term and permanent funding, including hiring and retention of staff

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will identify the Library’s and University’s current funding allocations that do or could support DEI initiatives.

  • The Library’s annual report includes data on the impact of funding on achieving Goal 1 and provides avenues for interested parties to pledge support
  • 2021: IE annual report
  • Fall 2022: Library annual report
  • Communications
  • Advancement
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Managers
  • Communications
  • Advancement
  • Staff time
  • Grant Funding

Action 2: The Library will plan, develop, and implement new strategies for fundraising and allocations necessary to fulfilling Goal 1, including but not limited to advancement initiatives, collections budgets and funds, hiring practices, and grants.

  • SLT and Advancement present new strategies to Library staff
  • Communications reports on outcomes with metrics provided by Advancement
  • Spring or Summer 2022
  • Communications
  • Advancement
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Managers
  • Communications
  • Advancement
  • Staff time
  • Grant Funding

Action 3: The Library will implement the strategies developed in Goal 1 through new and ongoing initiatives like the Art in Library Spaces working group, collection development, Open Scholarship resources, community centered programing and engagement, and hiring to fulfill staffing needs related to those strategies.

  • SLT and Advancement present new strategies to Library staff
  • Communications reports on outcomes with metrics provided by Advancement
  • 2023: the Library will report annually on planning, tracking, and implementation
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Information Technology
  • Library Assessment
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time

Dimension 4: Infrastructure + Investment

2030 Vision: Be a community that consistently lives its values and ensures that our systems enable our students, faculty, and staff to do their best work.

This dimension refers to the policies, resources, organizational and communication structures, and performance measures that inform and enable an intentionally inclusive, equitable, and innovative organization. In addition to the priority goals listed below, we also identified other ways that the Library could examine accessibility, such as using technology for wayfinding, reviewing accommodations needed by new and current staff, and establishing an advisory group to systematically examine accessibility measures in the Library and to make recommendations for continual improvement. We also recognized current efforts underway in the Library, including plans to conduct research on circulation user data; the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Collections effort whose members analyze current collections and target the purchase of new library materials from diverse authors, countries, and publishers; and the Subject Access Enhancement Initiative, which seeks to improve subject access to our resources, with a focus on marginalized groups. 

Goal 1: Create and maintain physical and online Library spaces that are accessible to all users, bearing in mind that ADA law constitutes the legal minimum requirement, and the Library might need to do more in order to meet its mission

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will schedule rotating ADA audits (to include an assessment of barriers for neuro-diverse students, staff, faculty, and communities).

  • Review the accessibility of each physical library at least once every 5 years and act on any recommendations for improvement. Reach out to Student Disability Access Center (SDAC), Faculty Senate, and Staff Senate for help in finding organizations of differently abled people the library can work with to get their assessment of those library spaces as well as the UVA ADA Coordinator.
  • Spring 2022
  • Library Administration
  • ADA Coordinator
  • Institutional funds

Action 2: The Library will ensure, through regular assessment, that Library online resources are accessible to all members of the community.

  • Outcome of annual audits
  • 2022
  • Communications/UX
  • Library Information Technology
  • Staff time

Goal 2: Increase service to marginalized groups

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will take stock of existing Library representatives to diversity and inclusion units within the UVA community and assign representatives where none exist.

  • Create list, update upon staff departures, review annually, each representative reports out annually
  • 2021: Build list
  • Spring 2022: Outreach starts
  • IDEA Committee co-chairs recommend representatives to SLT
  • Staff time

Goal 3: Track our spending on inclusion and diversity across the Library

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will code expenditures on objectives established in the IE plan, IDEA committee programs, and other related actions.

  • Track and report annually on spending
  • 2022 or 2023: as UVA adopts Workday financials
  • Associate Dean for Administration
  • Library Finance
  • Library Managers
  • Staff time

Dimension 5: Community + Partnerships

2030 Vision: Be a strong partner with and good neighbor to our region, contributing economic and social well-being by providing accessible healthcare, innovative education, and opportunity, and by engaging alumni.

The Library is already engaged with the Charlottesville and Commonwealth communities in multiple endeavors, but we lack a community engagement strategy. We can’t be a good partner if we’re not a purposeful participant. The new DEI Director might be key in helping develop this strategy. Meanwhile, we have many staff who are already quite actively engaged in the communities around us in a variety of ways, so we could begin by understanding the existing commitments of Library staff and where those staff see opportunities to build and diversify more formal partnerships between the Library and its communities.

Goal 1: Expand use of our resources by surrounding area residents, with a focus on reaching underserved members of our communities
(See also Dimension 6: Healing + Repair)

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will assess existing community engagement by Library staff and canvass staff for organizational opportunities. The Library will also assess established and emerging University pathways to community partnership, beginning by establishing an organizational relationship with UVA’s Center for Community Partnership (CCP).

  • Results from Library staff survey on community engagements and opportunities
  • DEI Director reports to SLT on existing and emerging community partnership opportunities
  • 2022: Establish relationship between Library and CCP once DEI director is hired
  • 2022: Survey of staff open for three months
  • 2023: Community engagement report
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • DEI Director
  • Library Staff Council
  • Library Assessment
  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will identify staff who have volunteered in the community and those who have provided Library resources to community partners.

  • Conduct surveys to track and identify community-oriented activity.
  • 2022
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Assessment
  • Library Staff Council
  • Library Communications
  • Staff time

Action 3: The Library will establish a community engagement and partnership strategy in coordination with relevant University, School, and College initiatives and input wherever possible. The strategy will address possibilities for community-initiated partnerships in addition to Library- or university-initiated partnerships.

  • Senior Leadership Team leads in developing a strategy for community engagement and incorporates the strategy into the broader strategic planning for the Library
  • 2023
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Staff time

Action 4: Guided by the Library’s community engagement strategy, the Library will work with local libraries and schools to provide access to our spaces, events, circulating collections, and wherever possible, our electronic resources. This will involve consultation with representatives from the relevant communities.

  • Number of unique-guest internet passes
  • Number of circulations to community users
  • Number of staff-community engagements
  • Number of unique-guest parking permits
  • 2024
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Communications
  • Library Managers
  • Possible cross-unit working group
  • Staff time
  • Event Costs
  • Travel Costs
  • Possible new staff position

Goal 2: Support local economies by procuring with local and diverse vendors

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will review UVA’s procurement vendor list and compare it to Library’s frequent vendors.

  • Report on existing Library vendor profile and identify opportunities to diversify Library procurement
  • Fall 2022
  • Library Finance
  • Library Administration
  • Staff time

Action 2: The Library will track and report Women-owned, and Minority-owned (SWaM) vendors for Library whenever possible.

  • Annual spending with SWaM vendors as a percentage of spending with all vendors
  • Fall 2021
  • Library Finance
  • Advancement
  • Various Library Departments and Units
  • Costs of some services and products may increase
  • Staff time

Dimension 6: Healing + Repair

Racial Equity Report: How can higher education learn to run while we still struggle at times to walk or even to crawl? Are we as an institution prepared to consider how certain systems have stacked the odds of thriving at UVA in favor of some, and to the detriment of others? Are we prepared to rethink practices, traditions, and norms that have not operated to equalize the probability of success for generations of students, staff, and faculty? - Racial Equity Task Force, “Audacious Future: Commitment Required,” page 8.

The Library’s standing Committee on Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Accessibility (IDEA) and the Inclusive Excellence Task Force chose to add Healing + Repair late in the process of producing this report. Though not listed in the Inclusive Excellence toolkit, Healing + Repair has a direct relation to the University’s Racial Equity Task Force Report and it also accurately captures the spirit of some ongoing and planned activity in the Library.

 

 

Goal 1: Understand and acknowledge the historical landscapes and legacies of the University of Virginia Library

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will develop a plan for engaging historically disenfranchised communities, starting with a land acknowledgment that shows respect for the traditional custodians of the land on which our Library stands and for the enslaved Africans, enslaved laborers and free Black laborers who built the University. In consultation with members of the community, including the descendant community of the University’s enslaved and free laborers, and with the Monacan, Powhatan, and other tribes, the Library will also consider permanent plaques embodying these recognitions to be placed in the renovated main library.

  • Land acknowledgment statement is published on Library website, addressed in meetings, and stated before Library events
  • Alignment with University-wide initiatives and memoranda of understanding with state- and federally-recognized Virginia tribes and the descendant community of the University’s enslaved and free laborers
  • July 2021
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Library Stakeholders
  • Staff time
  • Production of some signage and publications

Action 2: The Library will reconsider the names applied to our Libraries and library spaces, starting with Alderman Library, but also including other named spaces. Where a University process exists (e.g., for building names) we will use that process. Where one does not exist (e.g., for room-level naming) we will develop an internal process that is transparent and inclusive and will seek feedback from students and faculty.

  • Renaming of Alderman Requested
  • Inventory of other Library spaces that warrant renaming is complete
  • Library process for spaces not covered by the UVA Committee is established
  • Library spaces named to reflect inclusion and equity
  • 2021 and ongoing
  • UVA Naming and Memorials Committee
  • Library Administration
  • Library’s Renaming Research Group
  • Signage
  • Staff time

Goal 2: The Library represents the UVA community in its spaces through artwork, design choices, and outreach efforts

Actions Metrics Timeframe Responsible Party Resource Allocation

Action 1: The Library will reassess art displays in Library spaces to align with Library mission and values and document the results of the reassessment and the decisions made.

  • Changes in the art displayed in the Library, noting the percentage change from old to new

 

  • June 2022

 

  • Senior Leadership Team
  • DEI Director
  • Library Assessment
  • Staff time
  • Redirection of some purchasing resources

Action 2: The Library will mount exhibitions and programs that use an anti-racist framework for curation, design, writing, and production. As in the past, the Library will continue to partner with students and faculty on exhibitions and programs when the occasion allows.

  • Increased number of exhibitions and public programs using intentional anti-racist and anti-oppressive themes
  • Already ongoing
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Art in Library Spaces Committee
  • Staff time
  • Cost of exhibitions and programs
  • Possible additional staff

Action 3: The Library will sponsor and participate in social justice research events for faculty, staff, and students, both internal and external to UVA.

  • Engagement with the Library community through lecture series, brown bags, etc.
  • Fall 2022
  • Exhibition Coordinator
  • Exhibition Curators
  • Event costs
  • Possible use of Aperio as publishing platform for new UVA research

Action 4: The Library will continue the work of the “Art in Library Spaces” working group and establish a standing committee to recommend art for addition or removal from Library spaces. This group will include representatives from outside the Library, for example library users, Fine Arts faculty, and student artists curators from campus and local museums, or others.

  • Inclusive exhibitions and displays in library spaces
  • Related partnerships with community artists and organizations
  • Included in IE annual report and Town Hall updates
  • Fall 2023: Standing committee formed after the opening of the renovated library and end of Art in Library Spaces working group
  • Senior Leadership Team
  • Standing Committee on Art in Library Spaces
  • Capital Campaign funding
  • Library Administration; Unit budgets