Location

Expo Center

Session Number

6

Description

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has invested significant energy over the last 20 years in building workforce capacity across the country’s academic libraries. The global pandemic has given this work a whole new intensity as directors find themselves seeking to fill large numbers of vacancies in a highly competitive market, to encourage more candidates from equity-deserving groups to apply, to prepare both new and long-serving staff members to take on new kinds of work, and to create workplace environments that encourage staff to stay.

This paper will update the international community on a number of CARL initiatives that are collectively building the national understanding and approach to library workforce capacity. Most notably, the paper will introduce the new Competencies for Librarians in Canadian Research Libraries (September 2020) which aims to help with both personal and organizational goal setting, recruitment and professional development. The paper will also describe the national Diversity and Inclusion Survey conducted in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) to better understand both the demographics of the CARL workforce and how individuals from various equity-deserving groups experience that workplace. The paper will document the dramatic increase in the number and engagement in professional learning and development opportunities for staff in Canadian research libraries, from webinars and symposiums to community calls and cross-Canada coffee chats. Finally, the paper will demonstrate the use of a logic model as envisioned by CARL’s Library Impact Framework Working Group, as a strategy for an individual library to visualize the impact of its various efforts on welcoming and retaining new staff.

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Jun 14th, 3:45 PM Jun 14th, 5:00 PM

Supporting the Academic Library Workforce: Updates from the Canadian Association of Research Libraries

Expo Center

The Canadian Association of Research Libraries (CARL) has invested significant energy over the last 20 years in building workforce capacity across the country’s academic libraries. The global pandemic has given this work a whole new intensity as directors find themselves seeking to fill large numbers of vacancies in a highly competitive market, to encourage more candidates from equity-deserving groups to apply, to prepare both new and long-serving staff members to take on new kinds of work, and to create workplace environments that encourage staff to stay.

This paper will update the international community on a number of CARL initiatives that are collectively building the national understanding and approach to library workforce capacity. Most notably, the paper will introduce the new Competencies for Librarians in Canadian Research Libraries (September 2020) which aims to help with both personal and organizational goal setting, recruitment and professional development. The paper will also describe the national Diversity and Inclusion Survey conducted in partnership with the Canadian Centre for Diversity and Inclusion (CCDI) to better understand both the demographics of the CARL workforce and how individuals from various equity-deserving groups experience that workplace. The paper will document the dramatic increase in the number and engagement in professional learning and development opportunities for staff in Canadian research libraries, from webinars and symposiums to community calls and cross-Canada coffee chats. Finally, the paper will demonstrate the use of a logic model as envisioned by CARL’s Library Impact Framework Working Group, as a strategy for an individual library to visualize the impact of its various efforts on welcoming and retaining new staff.