UVic Libraries & Art Collections Impact Action Plan

Inspired by and honouring place, the University of Victoria is a community-minded, globally engaged university transforming ideas into meaningful impact. UVic Libraries and Art Collections advance the University’s commitment to building a strong foundation of excellence in teaching, research and creative works, and to ensuring an outstanding student experience.

We hold ourselves accountable to ʔetalnəw̓əl | ÁTOL,NEUEL by respecting the rights of one another, being in right relationship with all things, and by upholding the rights of Indigenous Peoples.

We acknowledge and respect the Lək̓ʷəŋən (Songhees and Xʷsepsəm/Esquimalt) Peoples on whose territory the university stands, and the Ləkʷ̓ əŋən and W̱SÁNEĆ Peoples whose historical relationships with the land continue to this day.

Introduction

As the university’s academic commons, the University of Victoria Libraries & Art Collections are a hub of transformation, providing physical and digital spaces, expertise, access to knowledge and the convening power to accelerate learning and research and build intellectual community.

We are a catalyst for innovation and creativity, critical for student success and for bridging research silos across the university. We weave together a connective fabric of relationships that encompasses the whole campus community in a way that no one else can.

Open

We are an agent of digital transformation and excellence, opening avenues for knowledge translation and catalyzing intellectual community

Goal 1: We prioritize high-quality, open, ethics-based research infrastructure

• Action 1: We will partner to develop shared initiatives such as Scholaris, Borealis and other emerging opportunities
• Action 2: We will partner to strengthen research impact via open publishing and platforms, transformative agreements and research assessment frameworks such as DORA
• Action 3: We will leverage persistent identifiers (PIDs) for sustainable access to research and to connect UVic research with the global research environment

Goal 2: We establish and maintain respectful partnerships to strengthen engagement with our services and collections

• Action 1: We will strive to develop and maintain respectful and reciprocal relationships with Indigenous peoples, communities and nations for the preservation of, and responsible access to, Indigenous cultural heritage
• Action 2: We will establish the Kula: Library Futures Academy as a world-leading institute for the evolving role of academic libraries in building transdisciplinary research collaborations
• Action 3: We will invest in international knowledge partnerships and community projects aligned with the Kula: Library Futures Academy

Engaged

We centre learning and create an environment in which all students can succeed, contributing to scholarship and society

Goal 3: We help advance the university’s student recruitment, retention and success goals

• Action 1: We will support the strategic enrollment plan, focusing on student well being, the international student experience and pathways from undergraduate to graduate programs beginning in the first year
• Action 2: We will support students to develop digital literacy and leadership skills, fostering lifelong learners and future-ready graduates
• Action 3: We will prioritize renovations of our spaces for learning and research, including creating culturally informed learning environments that celebrate and honour Indigenous cultural heritage

Goal 4: We take a holistic and inclusive approach to supporting the student experience

• Action 1: We will support the success of Indigenous students by increasing our engagement with NCIL, SAGE, CIRCLE and other key partners
• Action 2: We will create opportunities for all students to critically explore artificial intelligence concepts and tools
• Action 3: We will enhance services for STEM students and researchers through key initiatives such as research software training, data services and collaboration with campus and student partners

Enduring

We ensure a continuity of public memory, stewarding research collections that enrich, inform and improve people’s lives

Goal 5: We actively steward collections for long-term preservation, as well as for ethical access and reuse

• Action 1: We will strengthen infrastructure and policy related to sensitive research data and collections including personally identifying and culturally sensitive information
• Action 2: We will enhance contextual and item-level descriptive metadata for our distinctive collections, and continuously review our descriptive practices to adopt respectful terminologies
• Action 3: We will reinforce infrastructure and processes for ensuring long-term access and preservation of locally held digital collections

Goal 6: We significantly improve interdisciplinary use and discovery of research collections

• Action 1: We will accelerate the digitization of our distinctive collections, making them available in open, accessible, machine-readable formats
• Action 2: We will ethically integrate collections into scholarly large language models, to inject trustworthy information into artificial intelligence applications
• Action 3: We will partner on innovative pedagogical and technical approaches to mobilize our collections in research and teaching