University of Alberta Library > About Us > Mission, Vision, & Priorities

Mission, Vision, & Priorities

Mission

To foster the creation of knowledge, to enable its dissemination, and to ensure its preservation.

Vision

We apply our expertise to help our community create, find, use, and analyze a wide array of information and data. We create a dynamic Library that is essential for every researcher, teacher, and learner at the University of Alberta.

Priorities

Teaching & Learning

Through excellent instruction and support, we respond and adapt to the changing needs of learners. Our information resources, along with our teaching and reference services, provide the scaffolding that learners need to build their academic and professional careers. We believe learners should have access to high-quality information when they need it and where they need it, and we strive to continually expand and improve this access.

Decolonization & Indigenization

We actively support the decolonial Indigenization1 of the University library. Through collaboration across our campuses and in the community we work to dismantle barriers to our collections, spaces, and services. We respect the land on which our library spaces sit and on which we work—Treaty Six and Métis territory. We acknowledge past exclusions and misrepresentations of Indigenous peoples and knowledge systems, as well as the inherent and harmful gaps and oversights in library practices. We make ongoing efforts to move beyond these practices and toward those that further reconciliation, expand accessibility to our resources, and increase equity to our collections and to learning for all.

Inclusion

We aim to create a welcoming, inspiring, accessible library where people know they belong and are able to fully and confidently learn, research, collaborate, and work. As a strategic priority we build spaces, collections, and services that value and support our diverse community.

Research

We bring curiosity, passion, and expertise to research challenges. We seek to find opportunities to support and participate in all parts of the research lifecycle, from discovery to publication. We work to enable discovery, provide expertise, and access to information and technology. We support research data management and open access publishing. We work with the community to help understand research impact.

We help lead and build partnerships that enable research to happen locally, nationally, and internationally, and for knowledge to be optimally shared.

We build on a tradition of service and stewardship, as well as seek new ways to support research in a continually changing environment.

1 See: Gaudry A, Lorenz D. Indigenization as inclusion, reconciliation, and decolonization: navigating the different visions for indigenizing the Canadian Academy. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples. 2018;14(3):218-227. https://doi-org.login.ezproxy.library.ualberta.ca/10.1177/1177180118785382

2023-24 Strategic Goals

  1. Support teaching and learning (online and onsite) by strengthening and expanding learners’ and instructors’ links to resources.
  2. Open the new Geoffrey and Robyn Sperber Health Sciences Library as an innovative and welcoming space that facilitates teaching, learning, and research.
  3. Create safe, accessible, productive, and comfortable physical and virtual spaces and services, welcoming all community members.
  4. Commit to building a more inclusive work culture and prioritize belonging.
  5. Continue to evolve how we describe, present, acquire, and share materials related to Indigenous peoples, in broad consultation with Indigenous peoples and other institutions and organizations.
  6. Incorporate Indigenous ways of knowing into services and spaces, guided by Indigenous students, faculty, and communities.
  7. Strengthen library research services and partnerships and increase awareness of them to advance U of A research nationally and internationally.
  8. Advance Open Access and Open Scholarship by pursuing key infrastructure initiatives, supporting faculty research and cultivating expanded opportunities for national and international collaboration.
  9. Improve the usability, accessibility, and discoverability of our collections through LSP migration and enhancing our discovery ecosystem.
  10. Focus on sustainability as we transform our services, operations, and infrastructure in adapting to changing realities faced by the University of Alberta and the academy.