The University of Arizona Libraries launched our current strategic plan to establish guiding principles and strategic priorities while focusing on implementing actions that fulfill our mission and align with the university's strategic imperatives.
Guiding principles
Four guiding principles inform our strategic priorities.
These principles share our commitment to inclusivity and to the Libraries and our users. They also acknowledge the importance of our geographic location in southern Arizona and the US-Mexico borderlands.
Diversity
We enrich our work through the exchange of many voices and ideas.
Hispanic serving
As an organization within a Hispanic Serving Institution located in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands, we are committed to the multi-faceted advancement of Hispanic students, faculty, staff, and community members.
Native American serving
As an organization within an American Indian and Alaska Native Serving Institution located in a state in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands with 22 federally recognized tribes, we are committed to the multi-faceted advancement of Native American students, faculty, staff, and community members.
Default to open
We seek to remove barriers to access and participation in research, scholarship, and learning worldwide. We are committed to "default to open," which means we provide open access to research, scholarship, and learning whenever possible.
Strategic priorities
Five strategic priorities guide the work of our organization and employees.
Student success and learning
Contribute to the academic success and career preparation of every student, including historically underserved students, by integrating information, digital, and data literacies within and beyond the classroom.
Research lifecycle
Integrate library services and expertise into research workflows, from conceptualization to dissemination of results.
Information access
Improve the discoverability, accessibility, and stewardship of information resources and collections to meet the needs of current and future users.
Community engagement
Support lifelong learning for our local and global communities through educational experiences, partnerships, and open scholarship that advance the university’s land grant mission.
Organizational excellence
Provide employees meaningful opportunities for professional success and development while creating an inclusive, equitable, and diverse workplace that encourages them to thrive.
Actions
Our actions, which are informed by our guiding principles and strategic priorities, demonstrate how the Libraries are making an impact through our strategic plan and day-to-day work.
- Broadly implement and sustain an open educational resources program across campus, drawing from lessons learned through collaborative projects with the College of Nursing and the Department of Nutritional Sciences.
- Meet the growing demand across U of A colleges for evidence synthesis by evaluating and aligning UAL services in this area.
- Formalize and increase awareness of UAL geospatial data services by implementing new infrastructure and associated engagement across U of A colleges.
- Optimize access to all UAL information resources through an updated online search tool and inter-library loan system as part of a new Discovery to Delivery model.
- Document and highlight UAL impacts across campus by aligning the UAL assessment program with U of A assessment priorities, including program review and institutional assessment plans.
- Improve services to faculty and students across U of A colleges and departments by piloting a new librarian liaison model at Main Library using a discipline-based cohort model.
- Establish a comprehensive approach to physical collection care in Special Collections that prioritizes deferred maintenance, preservation, risk management, and emergency preparedness through strategic space planning and collaboration with key partners.
- Improve digital accessibility as part of UAL’s commitment to universal access to library services and materials for all users by building and adapting accessibility tools and workflows.
- Develop students’ AI literacy skills while maximizing AI access through a common framework in collaboration with campus partners.
- Achieve full text digitization and rapid inter-library loan access to more than 10,000 historical print journal runs by implementing the WEST/Internet Archive Journal Digitization Project with six peer institutions.
- Ensure the long-term preservation of unique and distinctive digital content by consolidating digital collections systems and processes into an integrated infrastructure and governance framework.
- Promote ongoing dialogue and enhance library engagement and support for all U of A students by organizing UAL employee training and discussions on a variety of topics.
- Expand relationships with campus and community partners to inform UAL employees’ knowledge base and improve library services.
- Improve support for U of A Health Sciences’ growth and expansion by assessing and updating the Health Science Library’s service model.
- Develop all students’ critical thinking skills by integrating primary source literacies and culturally responsive pedagogy tools into library instruction across the U of A curriculum.
- Identify obsolete legacy media, including magnetic media, through a UAL-wide strategy to apply preservation treatments and ensure long-term access.
- Strengthen UAL’s contributions to campus Hispanic serving and Native American supporting initiatives by expanding partnerships that include library workshops and curricular integrations.
- Incorporate information literacy modules, tutorials, and other instructional materials from UAL’s online teaching tools hub into student learning across the curriculum by partnering with faculty across U of A colleges and the General Education program.
- Train U of A faculty through the Mellon Foundation-funded Digital Borderlands in the Classroom project to create course assignments that support student research on the U.S.-Mexico borderlands by using archival materials, digital scholarship, and culturally responsive pedagogy.
- Increase equitable access to scholarship published by the University of Arizona Press by exploring potential internal funding models for publishing open access monographs.
Completed actions
- Increase the availability of accessible and inclusive study rooms.
- Improve training and experiences for student employees through campus partnerships.
- Plan and improve Health Sciences Library spaces in response to student feedback.
- Create pilot project to incentivize creating, adapting, and adopting open educational resources in nursing.
- Create and promote distinctive collections in the Health Sciences Library.
- Create a Fine Arts floor and sound-proof listening and performance room at Weaver Library and transfer collections from the Fine Arts Library.
- In partnership with the U of A Confluencenter for Creative Inquiry, collaborate with Ford Foundation grantees to archive and activate results of the Reclaiming the Border Project, a digital archive project about the U.S.-Mexico border funded by the Ford Foundation.
- Implement an intranet on SharePoint where library employees can organize, discover, and access information.
- Partner with the General Education Office to implement library programming, instructional tools, and learning models into the revised Gen Ed curriculum.
- Open an in-house digitization lab in academic year 2022-2023.
- Participate in the Academic Preservation Trust by adding copies of important digital objects to preserve in long-term storage.
Ongoing actions
- Integrate library services into Digital Borderlands projects, which support open access humanities scholarship about the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and are funded by the Mellon Foundation.
- Increase the technology lending program through campus partnerships to better meet needs of all students, including underrepresented and first-generation students.
- Expand discovery and access to millions of ebooks and other materials for users worldwide in collaboration with the Internet Archive.
- Improve how we store, manage, and maintain our physical collections and print materials.
- Collaborate with U of A BookStores to implement the Pay One Price program campus wide by Fall 2023, where undergraduate students will have full access to all course materials for one low price.
- Collaborate with University Information Technology Services to better safeguard personal identifiable information that is passed to organizations we do business with, particularly for emerging technology that provides access to and authenticates library content.
- Improve discoverability of primary sources emphasizing underrepresented voices through digital collections, exhibits, and improved collection description.
- Revise our collection development policy to present a more balanced research repository, foregrounding cultural stewardship of diverse heritages in alignment with institutional and professional best practices.
- Lead collaborative primary source literacy initiatives to incorporate culturally relevant teaching approaches into U of A curricula to benefit all students.
- Assess library-based research services provided by 36 peer institutions.
- Provide geospatial support to campus through improved infrastructure.
- Broadly implement and sustain an open educational resources program.
- Coordinate campus-wide research services through collaboration with Research & Partnerships and University Information Technology Services.
- Implement the library's Website Refresh project.
- Provide hands-on IT experiences to current and prospective students and participate in programs like the Native American Science and Engineering Program to support historically underserved students.
- Establish processes for stakeholders to prioritize and support library projects and products that advance our mission and create business value.
- Build instruction and outreach programming to benefit all students, including first year, first-generation, international, and underrepresented students, though our Peer Information Counseling Program model.
- Support campus recruitment and retention programs as well as selected Gen Ed courses through an instructional support model delivered by library staff.