Building effective communication and interdepartmental partnerships are essential components of strengthening services, policies, and procedures to meet the individual information needs of students, faculty, and the college community. Despite major advancements in library services for users with disabilities, there are ongoing challenges, which need to be addressed. It is essential to develop inclusion and accessibility frameworks that serve mutual departmental interests to share and document lessons learned along the way. This article explores the evolving shared leadership between an Architecture Librarian/Liaison to the AccessAbility Center; and the Director of Student Disability Services at the City College of New York to examine strategic methods of managing, enhancing, and integrating, universal inclusivity and diversity in library services. The Librarian Liaison must take an active role in matters of accessibility policies and practices to meet user needs with cultural sensitivity. Merging the individual experiences, both authors deliver tangible solutions in creating more accessible services and environments, including an assessment checklist to demonstrate whether the Libraries have barriers and/or accessible spaces. The collaborative observations and strategic methods may be applicable to similar academic institutions that are considering transformative outreach initiatives to aid underserved populations such as library users with various disabilities.
Maximizing the current organizational culture and diversity/inclusion practices within CUNY libraries is crucial to retaining highly talented support staff with significant potential for future leadership roles. This research explores equity, diversity, and inclusion within the library profession, with the intention of implementing strategic frameworks to attract, recruit, and retain underrepresented groups within the University. To spotlight areas of upward mobility within CUNY academic libraries, a CUNY-wide Library Workplace Climate survey on the perceptions of diversity, universal inclusion, and career progression was conducted. The scope of the survey study compares the different perspectives of CUNY librarians, full-time library classified paraprofessionals, and part-time classified staff to measure CUNY's commitment to addressing the diversity gap in the library profession. CUNY-wide, 141 library employees participated in a survey study to uncover professional development opportunities in support of career advancement and upward mobility. Nearly 2 in 5 African American/Black library staff-members are paraprofessionals, while 13.5% are faculty. A stark contrast to 3 in 5 or 64% CUNY library faculty, which identified as White/Caucasian. The findings reinforce the need for measures to maximize workplace diversity through support-staff mentoring, guidance, and recruitment.Workplace mentorship and career development-across all levels within CUNY librariescultivate skills for a better work environment that can lead to promotion and successful plans for succession. Investing and sustaining structured library professional development opportunities geared towards underrepresented groups-generally in paraprofessional and student-worker roles-will help identify next generation CUNY library leadership.
Purpose Collection assessment is an essential aspect of library collection development, especially for public institutions currently affected by financial budget cuts. Collection managers working with little to no budget have the task of establishing unconventional methods of selecting most relevant materials. This paper aims to demonstrate the correlation between a syllabi analysis, faculty survey and circulation statistics as a practical measure to enhance and expand the architecture library services at the City College of New York and in academia in general. Design/methodology/approach This study uses mixed use assessment strategies to evaluate a library collection. The scope of the study supports combining collection-based practices and use-based methods to gather two types of data: quantitative (including collection size and/or in-house use statistics) and qualitative (accomplished by user opinion surveys, focus groups and/or list checking). Findings Out of 74 architecture faculty members, 22 participated in a library survey to help uncover new opportunities for cross-collaboration. The findings simultaneously reinforce the importance of exploring syllabi and usage data as methods of assessment to reveal opportunities for cultivating library collections. Originality/value This paper will provide a better understanding of faculty perceptions to discover academic needs and achieve library integration into the design curriculum. The study demonstrates prospective directions for collection evaluation and faculty collaboration to open further opportunities for building a successful library.
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