Year Three Update on the Library’s Strategic Plan

As we wrap up the third year of the library’s five-year strategic plan (2022-27), we are excited to share our progress to date in implementing the priorities identified in our plan, and some of the next steps we’ll be focusing on in the year ahead.

Priority 1 • Buildings & Online

Priority 1 of our strategic plan focuses on making our library buildings and online environment welcoming to all members of UC Davis’ increasingly diverse campus community.

Based on library user research conducted earlier in the strategic plan period, we implemented sweeping changes to the first floor and lower level of Shields Library to make these highly utilized student spaces more welcoming. (Goal 1.1)

• Our research had affirmed the value of the Welcome Desk in the lobby—but also that students (quite reasonably) found it disorienting that the desk was behind them when they entered. During summer 2024, we demolished the large, fixed partition that had created a literal barrier to entry and obscured the Welcome Desk, replacing it with an open entry experience and a new Welcome Desk facing the main doors. We also moved the lobby map kiosk to a more prominent location by the main entrance.
• To address student perceptions of the lobby as “comfortable” but “boring/neutral,” staff have begun decorating the Circulation Desk area with colorful and inclusive seasonal themes (e.g., spring flowers, clouds and umbrellas, graduation caps).
• The enclosed glass case formerly used for book displays by the Circulation Desk has been replaced by a pair of bookstore-style shelves that invite people to pick up and explore the selected books. Nearly 90 books have been checked out in the first 4.5 months of 2025, when the new open shelves were set up.

• Beyond the lobby, we partnered with Student Affairs to renovate the Academic Assistance and Tutoring Center space on the Lower Level, which serves 8,000 individual students each year.
• We removed the stacks that occupied the east wing of the first floor (consolidating those book collections into other areas of the library) to open up a large and bright new study space, which immediately became popular with students.
• And we partnered with Design and Construction Management to re-landscape the grassy area in the Shields Library Courtyard.

Another piece of user feedback we received is that the alcove at the north end of the lobby, which had been vacant for several years, clearly “used to be something” and needed a new purpose. This year we partnered with Aggie Mental Health to create a Wellness Info Desk where students could connect with Aggie Mental Health Ambassadors and learn about support resources available on campus. The Wellness Info Desk served 1,800+ students during the 2024-25 academic year.

We created Kids Activity Kits to support student and faculty parents who sometimes need to bring their kids along when they come to the library to do research or study. Offering the kits for checkout at the Shields Circulation Desk, and promoting them through the Transfer and Reentry Center, was designed as a strategy to welcome student parents, in particular, as they are an often-overlooked population on campus.

Priority 2 • Education & Academic Success

Priority 2 focuses on ways the library can support undergraduate and graduate student academic success, lifelong learning, culturally diverse programming, and other aspects of the university’s educational mission.

To improve off-campus access to ebooks, the library implemented a two-year pilot of the Palace Project app. (Goal 2.1)

The Library Graduate Student Prize celebrated its second cohort of winners — graduate students who used the library to create outstanding, publicly engaged scholarship. (Goal 2.3) Congratulations to this year’s winners, who came from a wide range of disciplines: Maria Cruz (Public Health Sciences), Tara Pozzi (Environmental Science and Policy), and Mikhaila Redovian & Kirsten Schuhmacher (joint project winners in English Literature). Prize recipients were celebrated at an awards ceremony with remarks from University Librarian and Vice Provost of Digital Scholarship William Garrity and Provost Mary Croughan. This year saw applications increase by 39% to 25, and strong engagement from the Library Leadership Board and Development while the prize is in search of permanent funding.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

The Norma J. Lang Prize for Undergraduate Information Research has grown in the number of applicants and the award amount has increased. Learn about our 2025 winners.

In addition to the two student prize ceremonies, the library sponsored a wide range of events and exhibits through which members of various campus communities could see themselves represented. (Goal 2.3)

• Created Arts @ Shields, a series of popup musical and dance performances by students, for students
• Black Family Day Retrospective Gallery and Book Talk, co-sponsored with the Cross Cultural Center
• Flor y Canto, a bilingual student poetry reading hosted in partnership with the UC Davis Strategic Chicanx and Latinx Retention Initiative (El Centro)
• Hosted the first annual Letters & Science Authors Celebration, recognizing faculty in the College of Letters and Science who published a book in the past year, in partnership with the College and the Manetti Shrem Museum

• Cooking Against the Grain, an exhibition of cookbooks from around the world, showcasing a rich tapestry of culinary voices. Curated by the library’s Food and Wine program in partnership with the UC Davis Department of Spanish and Portuguese as part of Thinking Food at the Intersections.
• Confronting Violence: Improving Women’s Lives: Blaisdell Medical Library hosted a traveling exhibit from the National Library of Medicine that explores the role nurses played in pushing the medical field to identify, respond to, and prevent intimate partner violence.
• Making Our Mark: Queer Visual Art and Culture in the Modern Era: Exhibit curated by Archives and Special Collections

In addition:

• We created an email address for accessibility questions (library.accessibility@ucdavis.edu) to improve accessibility of library services and resources. (Goal 2.4)
• The library received generous donor funding to implement an internship program for undergraduate students. We are recruiting interns to start work on projects in various Library departments (DataLab, Library Administration, Researcher Services and Student Service) in Fall 2025. The internships offer students a hands-on opportunity to contribute to meaningful, project-based work that advances the library’s mission to foster learning, research, and discovery. (Goal 2.5)
• In academic year 2024-25, we were able to extend our AggieOpen Fellowship program for a third year and enroll a new cohort of five UC Davis faculty members. (Goal 2.6)

Priority 3 • Research & Data

Priority 3 focuses on the library’s role in advancing research, collaboration, data sharing, and equitable access to knowledge.

Aggie Experts was expanded to include all Academic Senate and Federation researchers and scholars. To facilitate research collaboration and community engagement, the platform was made available to the public in May. (Goal 3.2)

Development and launch of researchcomputing.ucdavis.edu to help researchers discover and connect with computing resources and services. (Goal 3.2)

The increasing prevalence of generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) in teaching, learning, and research activities has important implications for the UC Davis community. To address this, the library, in collaboration with the Center for Educational Effectiveness, published a guide on Generative AI. It provides guidance on using GenAI by linking to key frameworks, best practices, and current research to help users deepen their understanding of this emerging issue. (Goal 3.3)

In addition:

• Continued instruction and refinement of curricular materials addressing multiple objectives, including 3.1.1, 3.2.2 and 3.3.1.
• The library’s Scholarly Communication Program led a series of workshops, including those below. Contact Michael Ladisch to request a meeting or presentation for your researchers. (Goal 3.5)
  • Copyright and Dissertations workshops for graduate students, in collaboration with Graduate Studies
  • Half-day copyright workshop for research administrators as part of the Research Administration Certificate series, in collaboration with HR Learning & Development
  • Copyright and Writing with AI Workshop, in collaboration with Graduate Studies and the Writing Center

Priority 4 • Collections

Priority 4 works to ensure that our collections reflect diverse populations and adapt to meet clinical care, research and educational needs.

• As we seek to identify and address gaps created by systemic inequities in publishing and curation, the library began a pilot project to address some of the systemic problems in our collections with respect to music scores. (Goal 4.1)
• We adapted an idea from another university to develop MyShelf, a pilot program for recently hired tenure-ladder faculty. The library pledges to spend up to $15,000 over a three-year period to acquire books and other one-time purchases to support the faculty member’s research agenda. For the pilot program, we asked department chairs to nominate appropriate faculty, letting chairs consider retention priorities. The program is not designed to target particular affinity groups, though it will tend to be most impactful for faculty members for whom the library has not previously been building collections. It also links the library’s collection strategy to the evolving profile of the faculty; as the faculty’s research and curricular needs change over time, the library will automatically pick up on those changes. (Goal 4.1)
• Actively responding to community interest in shared projects for preserving local histories. Provided community archive consultation services for the Filipino American National Historical Society Sacramento-Delta chapter, scan-and-return and online hosting services to archival material held and owned by the Chicago Cafe (California’s oldest Chinese restaurant, located at Woodland, California), and oral history “crash course” workshops to capture local and family histories. (Goal 4.3)
• Expanding web archiving to UC units outside of the main campus and continuing to add new sites to Archive-it; working on a student voices project that will highlight first-generation students and their college experience; and assisting other campus units (e.g., Bodega Bay, Asian American Studies) with publishing finding aids to the Online Archive of California. (Goal 4.3)

Priority 5 • Organizational Culture

Priority 5 is dedicated to strengthening the library’s organizational culture as an inclusive, equitable and supportive workplace.

• Our Wellness Ambassador won a $500 Wellness Ambassador Mini-Grant. She worked with the library’s Employee Engagement Committee to provide a Steps, Hydration, and Spring Wellness Challenge, with 4 winners per challenge, winning $25 gift cards each. (Goal 5.1)
• Library HR is working with campus HR to roll out the BEST Rewards program for employee recognition soon. (Goal 5.1)
• A Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Committee was formed in 2024 to support the library’s goal of making diversity, equity and inclusion central to library culture by promoting lifelong learning about DEI for library employees. (Goal 5.2)
• The effort to convene committee on Best Practices for Assembling Library Task Forces and Committees Using an Equity Lens is pause due to lack of volunteer engagement. (Goal 5.2)
• Library HR will be implementing ideas from the New Employee Welcome task force (Goal 5.3), including:
  • Coordinating a New Employee Welcome Program
  • Updating the onboarding checklist 
  • Meet with managers/supervisors to ensure they understand they are primarily responsible for making sure that new employees are onboarded successfully.
• There will be an HR Advancing Inclusivity and Diversity (AID) training in July to support cultural competence and skillful discussions. (Goals 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4)
• Due to budget constraints, the library will not move forward with creating a senior-level OE/DEI position as we had planned. For the time being, we will continue to rely on Robin Gustafson’s leadership in implementing specific objectives within Priority 5. Over the long term, we anticipate consolidating some of the responsibilities that had been part of the Director of OE/DEI position description into the role of the Director of HR. (Goal 5.4)

Comments or Questions?

The library remains deeply committed to the principles and priorities in our strategic plan, and in the spirit of the inclusive process through which it was developed, we welcome questions, feedback and ideas from all library users, campus partners, and employees. If you have an idea to share, or would like to learn more about our implementation progress to date, please email us at library@ucdavis.edu with “Strategic Plan” in the subject line.