The Library has undertaken an intensive strategic planning process of engagement and analysis with the goal of defining the key priorities around which we will align our future efforts. This strategic plan lists four priority areas and key goals toward which we can make significant progress over the next three years. While we will undertake specific projects to advance these goals, we remain committed to maintaining our core services, enhancing the quality of those services, and continuing to listen to our communities.
Research libraries exist to enable the transmission of culture and knowledge across generations. How that transmission is realized can change dramatically and quickly, as we have seen in the few decades since the world entered the utterly transformational internet age. Libraries understand that the digital age does not supplant everything that came before; it complements it. The research library serves an essential public purpose as a long-lasting institution that is an integral component of a healthy and free society. It succeeds in the face of disruptive change by remaining anchored to its core values: defending each library user’s intellectual freedom to go wherever their curiosity leads them, and recognizing that each research community, and each individual researcher within that community, has unique needs.
The UCSB Library stands together with its nine sister campus libraries, plus the California Digital Library, in collective commitment to support the University of California in its broad and deep ambitions to advance research, teaching, learning, and engagement. We achieve our goals through the power of ten campuses and by leveraging the library as place, working with partners who are equally committed to our shared mission within UCSB’s broad-based interdisciplinary culture. With thousands of students passing through our doors every day, and thousands more using the library virtually, the UCSB Library plays a critical role in realizing the university’s commitment to supporting an engaged and inclusive community.
