Updated Spring 2024

Strategic Direction 1: Enhance the Student Experience

Rationale: The E. H. Little Library serves as an inclusive learning community for students to collaborate, explore, experiment, and grow as researchers, creators, and scholars. In order to provide the best experience possible for our students, we strive to better understand how students experience the library’s spaces, resources, programs, and services—and then actively use this information to guide our work and diversify our programming. In line with Davidson’s strong tradition of providing high-impact learning opportunities, we cultivate a holistic student workforce program and strengthen partnerships across campus. 

Pathways

• 1.1 Develop library programming that celebrates the diversity of the Davidson College experience.

• 1.2 Cultivate a holistic student workforce program that aligns with high-impact practices. 

• 1.3 Strengthen partnerships with campus and community partners.

• 1.4 Empower students to leverage information and technology to achieve and demonstrate competency in their learning goals. 

Strategic Direction 2: Expand Access

Rationale: We are most proud of how our expertise, programming, and resources intersect with and support the college’s strategic priorities, especially those of access and social justice. Library staff play an important role in expanding the global impact of traditional scholarship, stewarding born-digital materials, supporting digital scholarship, and advocating for equitable and sustainable access to information​.

Pathways

• 2.1 Collaborate with college and community partners to diversify our collections, ensure inclusive perspectives, and provide equitable access. 

• 2.2 Expand awareness, access, and use of the library’s digital scholarship services. 

• 2.3 Focus efforts to identify, digitize, and make Davidson’s unique collections more discoverable across our community.

• 2.4 Review, develop, and implement effective ethical data curation standards and practices. 

• 2.5 Lead, implement, and promote initiatives to advance open, inclusive, and equitable access to information.

Strategic Direction 3: Support a Diverse Workforce

Rationale: We are dedicated to supporting the professional well-being, growth, and engagement of every team member. Understanding that we are stronger together, we work with campus and consortial partners to expand opportunities for professional development. Recognizing the expertise of our workforce is not always visible, we create ways to publicly acknowledge and celebrate the excellence of our library staff and student employees. 

Pathways

• 3.1 Recruit, hire, and retain a diverse and engaged library staff.

• 3.2 Connect to current campus and consortial efforts to expand opportunities to develop expertise, collaborate, and grow professional networks. 

• 3.3 Expand opportunities to participate in regional and national diversity initiatives.

• 3.4 Develop a recognition program for library staff and student employees.

Strategic Direction 4: Collaborate and Connect

Rationale: As 21st-century research, teaching, and learning practices continue to evolve, so do the ways we create richer teaching and learning experiences for our faculty and students. To reflect the diversity of Davidson experiences, we collaborate on projects investigating and acknowledging the college’s history and encourage dialogue through library programming. Shared resource collaboratives provide opportunities to expand access, discovery, and use of scholarly resources.

Pathways

• 4.1 Establish sustainable programming to assist the college community in building a comprehensive understanding of the college’s history with slavery and race. 

• 4.2  Provide collaborative frameworks for faculty and staff to actively lead, experiment, and develop inclusive learning experiences for our students.

• 4.3 Expand access and discovery of scholarly resources via the power of shared resource collaboratives.

Strategic Direction 5: Strengthen Organizational Resilience

Rationale: Our response to the pandemic demonstrated how agile and resilient we can be as a high-performing organization, but also highlighted areas within our infrastructure that need strengthening. We will put in place the infrastructure necessary to sustain a high standard of organizational excellence. 

Pathways

• 5.1 Establish, update, and document workflows, policies, and procedures across teams. 

• 5.2 Develop, formalize, and implement library-wide documentation and records management processes. 

• 5.3 Design and employ transparent mechanisms to formalize continuous assessment, improvement, and communication.

Strategic Direction 6: Make Way for the Library of the Future

Rationale: The Library of the Future is now. We need to work together to tackle large-scale collections projects; develop service plans, policies, and programming; reimagine our models of service in alignment with LOTF aspirations; and develop sustainable structures, processes, programming, and policies needed for organizational success.

Pathways

• 6.1 Develop clearly defined collection development and management policies (including deselection, curation, and preservation) that re-establish the role of faculty as active participants in the ongoing development of the library collection.

• 6.2  Establish sustainable cross-team models, policies, and procedures to effectively support current, interim, and future services and programming. 

• 6.3 Create and implement a robust marketing plan for the library’s resources, programming, and services at all phases of our growth.