From Siloed to Connected: Using Engagement as a Means to Improve the Culture of a Library Division

Abstract

An organization's culture is complex and unique, and is made up of deeply seated values, beliefs, expectations, traditions, and motives that shape how employees respond to situations. In this session, learn how a small team in an academic library’s IT division has sought to enhance its culture, reduce the number of silos, improve the employee experience, and expand potential partnerships throughout the library and beyond. We’ll share how we gathered and prioritized ideas and subsequently offered programming with opportunities to learn from one another and from guest speakers. We touch on some of the documentation we put in place to bring some consistency and structure to onboarding. We’ll also discuss the training we offered to raise awareness of racism and better understand how racism appears on the job, particularly in IT work, as well as how we encourage colleagues to critically examine how to bring that lens to our division and overall library through meaningful action.With the move to being completely remote in March 2020, the team also hosted sessions that addressed communication, productivity, and social challenges within the division’s culture. Finally, we’ll highlight how we’ve assessed all this work and made strategic efforts to make the framework for the various programs reusable in coming years. Attendees of this session will leave with a plethora of ideas and considerations for how to enhance their own library culture through engagement, information sharing, and assessment.