Our Values

Privacy and security of staff and patron information

We hold paramount, the privacy and security of our staff and patron information.

We do this by:

• Continuously and iteratively refactoring our workflows and architecture to optimize the health of our systems
• Keeping up-to-date with potential areas of ingress and egress
• Creating and documenting security and privacy policies
• Building a Libraries-wide understanding of the importance of data security
  

Reliability of our services

We strive for 24/7 access to our online services.

We do this by:

• Continuously improving the monitoring, efficiency, and maintenance of our infrastructure and processes
• Maintaining robust workstations and technology for staff and public use
• Planning and scheduling service down times to minimize disruption to our staff and users

User Centered

We align our services and programs with the needs of our communities and strive to create shared ownership of the Libraries.

We do this by:

• Making User Experience (UX) improvements to systems, content, workflows, and/or processes
• Understanding user (including staff as users) needs
• Designing for accessibility
• Basing decisions on research data

Equity, diversity, and inclusiveness

With regard both to our users and to our staff members, we strive to examine our biases, and to acknowledge and improve our shortcomings in personal, work, and professional spheres.

We do this by:

• Striving to eliminate roadblocks by conducting accessibility audits, staff surveys, user research, environmental scans, and promoting universal design
• Valuing diverse perspectives and expertise which leads to better end results
• Repeatedly and iteratively examining our internal documentation, practices, and hiring and retention policies

Transparency and communication

We seek clarity and openness in our communication within ITS & DS, within the Libraries, and with Libraries' users.

We do this by:

• Timely posting of alerts, communication of planned outages, and notification of status in unplanned outages
• Notifying external partners when projects/work plans are delayed
• Recognizing and respecting different opinions and areas of expertise
• Having thoughtful and deliberate discussions regarding various approaches to the technical solutions we are trying to deploy
  

Health and well-being of our staff

We strive to create a healthy work environment that facilitates the well-being of our staff. We hold true to the belief that a healthy workplace and work-life balance not only benefits individuals, but also optimizes the performance of our work.

We do this by:

• Actively identifying and reducing toil
• Documenting tasks and procedures
• Striving for redundancy of knowledge
• Actively pursuing a healthy and enjoyable workplace environment
• Building time into work schedules to learn new technologies
• Respecting personal time and expertise
• Recognizing that healthy, well-designed, and well implemented systems and policies contribute to a healthy staff