Mission

The Libraries’ Instructional Design Team is one of four units within the UW Libraries Learning Services department. The team is focused on providing support for scalable and innovative approaches to library instruction; and coordinates Libraries support for fee-based degree programs, with emphasis on professional students, online learners, and non-traditional adult learning.

Values

The LibID team centers anti-racism in our individual and collective work on behalf of the UW communities we serve. Our intention is towards power sharing and using our resources to better the research and learning experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People Of Color (BIPOC) students, staff, and faculty at UW. 

Together, we understand anti-racism work to include the following facets:

Learning

Ongoing reflection & recognition of individual, institutional, and systemic forms of racism.

• Examine and challenge normative powers by cultivating personal and shared understandings of the power structures around race that affect us, our work, and the communities we serve. 
• Commit to ways of learning that do not add to the burden of BIPOC. Recognize that BIPOC are not responsible for teaching non-BIPOC about antiracism.
• Practice identifying and articulating the impacts of racism across multiple contexts, providing opportunities for listening and reflecting.
• Keep the Libraries up to date on recent research related to antiracist pedagogy and online learning.

Language

Appropriate, transparent, and thoughtful naming of cultures of whiteness and racism.

• Use language intentionally and specifically to keep appropriate focus on issues of race, racism, and the needs and wellness of BIPOC communities.
• Recognize and actively help reject biased language / linguistic bias when developing, supporting, or assessing library services and resources.

Action

Values and words are accompanied with specific actions, undertaken on multiple systemic levels (personal, unit, institutional), with the goal of revealing and dismantling racism. 

• Uplift and amplify BIPOC voices, especially in traditionally white spaces.
• Interrupt patterns of bias in the cultivation of library services and policies, including microaggressions, linguistic bias and implicit bias.
• Advocate for the known needs and experiences of BIPOC professional and online students, particularly in regards to design/pedagogy. 
• Create meaningful relationships with student groups and campus offices that support Black, Indigenous, and People of Color. 
• Promote anti-racist intentionality in scoping and contributing to library work.
• Regularly discuss the advantages and disadvantages of team decisions and investments on BIPOC and other marginalized groups.

Accountability

Efforts are undertaken with the goal of tracing and iterating antiracist strategies over time.

• Acknowledgement of what patterns, assumptions, or power dynamics we are disrupting or perpetuating; of which populations we are supporting with our actions and if/how we are deprioritizing marginalized populations; and of ways we have been harmed and benefited by status quo cultures of whiteness.
• Practice transparency, honesty, and specificity to one another, the Libraries, and our users in both scoping and assessing work meant to be anti-racist.