What you can expect from us

UVic Libraries will 

  • Provide library users with an inviting and supportive academic environment, inclusive service, and respect. 
  • Provide as many resources, facilities, and services as possible to support your studies. 
  • Provide equitable and open access to Library resources and facilities. 
  • Provide a safe environment by applying these Guidelines on Conduct, Guiding Principles, and other university procedures which support a respectful and productive learning environment. 

Access Services Guiding Principles 

Access Services staff working at the Mearns-McPherson Library and the Diana M. Priestly Law Library Ask Us Desks are committed to upholding the following guiding principles in service to all library users. 

  1. We create a welcoming environment for library users by providing friendly service, and inclusive accessible spaces. 
  2. We provide timely, efficient, and consistent service for library users. 
  3. We are respectful, empathetic, and transparent in our interactions with all members of the UVic Community. 
  4. We incorporate principles of reconciliation into our services and work towards decolonizing our services, interactions, and spaces. 
  5. We value the whole person and provide equitable service while recognizing diverse backgrounds and differing user needs. 
  6. We hold ourselves accountable to library users, to UVic libraries, and to the community that we serve. 
  7. We strive for continual learning and growth as library staff and as people. 
  8. We seek to build resourceful and empowered library users and staff. 
  9. We embrace the changing nature of academic libraries and provide services that meet the changing needs of our library users. 

Guiding Principles for Research Help

Research help is provided by librarians and archivists at UVic Libraries to students, faculty, staff, and members of the community. For the purposes of these guiding principles, we use the term “researchers” to describe members of all of these groups.

Our guiding principles are not directives; we recognize that using them requires judgment. Some guiding principles serve as counterpoints or balances to others. Not every guiding principle will be appropriate to every research help interaction. 

UVic Libraries supports librarians and archivists in providing research help according to these principles.

The Guiding Principles 

  1. We strive to ensure that researchers learn from the research help interaction. 
  2. We are attentive to the diversity of researchers’ backgrounds, abilities, experiences, expectations, and goals, and we strive to provide research help in an inclusive, equitable, decolonizing way. 
  3. We are alert and responsive to the diversity of project formats, scope, and characteristics that researchers are pursuing. 
  4. We provide research help in an accessible and visible way. 
  5. We strive to embody best practices in research help. 
  6. We make space for experimentation, creativity, and risk-taking in providing research help. 
  7. We continually assess our research help services to understand their effectiveness. 
  8. We leverage the full range of expertise in UVic Libraries to meet researchers’ needs, including referrals to colleagues, workshops, and other resources. 
  9. We educate library users about open practices in scholarly publishing, research, and educational contexts as part of research help interactions. 
  10. We embrace our own continuous learning, skill-building, and improvement in the changing research environment.