University Library Access Services - Service Philosophy Statement

We, the Service & Information Desk staff, commit ourselves to making you feel welcome at University Library and supporting your success by delivering information and collections-related services to you that are thorough and attentive. 

Our service will be intentionally delivered to you through a lens of equity, inclusion, accessibility, anti-racism, and humility. You will recognize this in our actions because: 

  • We will address racist or discriminatory behavior when we see it or hear it.
  • We will recognize that you are the expert in what you want to know by listening without interrupting and by allowing you to explain your needs yourself. 
  • We will listen and assist you when you are experiencing service barriers and look for solutions to overcome them. 
  • We will devote as much time as we can to be thorough as we meet your needs. 
  • We will make sure someone is available to help you, and give you multiple ways of communicating with us. 

We promise to...

Engage

  • We will practice active listening to let you know we’re attentive to your needs by not interrupting, using non-verbal cues of acknowledgment, and clarifying what we still don’t understand.
  • We will ask you open-ended and clarifying questions to fully understand what you seek and to guide you toward what you need.


Share Our Expertise

  • We will help you understand how library resources are organized so that you can navigate and access what you need.
  • We will explain our rationale for recommending resources and information to you, and make sure you are able to recreate our search process on your own.

Support Your Learning

  • We will partner with you in the search process so that you can gain confidence using library resources.
  • We will involve you as a decision maker to guide your own learning.

Refer You Appropriately

  • We will exhaust our effort and our resources to help you before connecting you with people and resources beyond the scope of our services and expertise.
  • We will make sure you don’t begin your search again from scratch when we refer you elsewhere for assistance by providing context for our work together.