Climate

• Create safe and inclusive spaces for patron use, e.g., all-gender restrooms, lactation rooms, and prayer rooms (all campuses)

• Survey or conduct focus groups of patrons about the climate of campus libraries (Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, San Francisco, Santa Cruz)

• Survey library employees about the climate of campus libraries (Berkeley, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, San Francisco, Santa Barbara, San Diego)

• Provide services and programming in languages other than English, e.g., tabling events, campus fliers, reference consultations, student orientations, library tours, and other library events (Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, San Francisco, Santa Cruz)

Culture

• Offer mentorship opportunities for library staff (Berkeley, Irvine, San Francisco)

• Offer mentorship programs that pair new librarians with more senior librarians, focus on knowledge-sharing, and allow BIPOC librarians to request BIPOC mentors (Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Santa Cruz)

• Develop a “buddy system” for all new hires in a department to help them settle in (Davis, San Diego)

• Develop an informal community of practice or collective for all library workers (Irvine, San Francisco, San Diego)

• Organize weekly or monthly brown bag lunches for more informal conversation and knowledge sharing (Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz)

Outreach and Collaboration

• Reach out to other campus entities engaged in diversity and inclusion work, e.g., affinity groups, area studies departments, campus organizations, and dedicated campus-wide offices, and partner with them to teach workshops and share resources (Davis, Irvine, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Diego)

• Identify and assign a specific person or team (e.g., librarians for DEIA, student success, or community engagement) with the task of doing outreach and looking for ways to collaborate within and beyond campus (Irvine, Merced, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Cruz)

• Create a blog that posts about diversity-related topics and shares information on campus and community events (Irvine)

Policies, Procedures, and Practices

• Examine policies, procedures, and practices for any explicit or implicit exclusionary language or practices, especially public-facing policies (Irvine, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz)

• Examine metadata used across the system and create more inclusive language for patrons using additional thesauri, such as Homosaurus (all campuses)

• Develop a strategic plan with a focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion that identifies end goals and a yearly plan to review progress toward those goals (Davis, Riverside)

• Involve staff, e.g., through focus groups, in the development of strategic plans (Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, San Francisco)

• Create positions dedicated to promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in multiple parts of the organizational structure (Irvine, Los Angeles, San Diego)

Professional Development

• Bring in speakers and experts for presentations, panels, and lectures about topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, e.g., course about trauma-informed and relational care, anti-racism speaker series (Davis, Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Diego)

• Sponsor staff to attend conferences focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, e.g., IDEAL Conference, Critical Librarianship & Pedagogy Symposium, National Joint Conference of Librarians of Color, ARL DEI Institute (Irvine, Riverside, Santa Cruz, San Francisco)

• Host discussions and reading and viewing groups about diversity, equity, and inclusion-centered articles, books, and films (Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Santa Cruz, San Diego)

• Provide professional development opportunities for all library workers, not only librarians, e.g., conference attendance funding, co-mentorship (Berkeley, Irvine, Santa Barbara, San Francisco)

• Organize workshops and spaces to present and share work among library staff in more relaxed, less formal ways, creating a lower barrier of participation for all (Berkeley, San Diego, Santa Cruz, San Francisco)

• Create an ongoing list or wiki for DEIA professional opportunities and resources for use and reference (Irvine)

Programs and Events

• Organize presentations, panels, and lectures about topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (Irvine, Merced)

• Organize programs, film screenings, and exhibits about topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion, e.g., series of discussions on critical information literacy and antiracist pedagogy; series of film screenings about Malcolm X and his legacy; exhibit about the Rupert Costo Library of the American Indian (Irvine, Los Angeles, Merced, Riverside, Santa Cruz, San Francisco, San Diego)

• Organize webinar screenings about topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (Irvine, San Diego)

Recruitment, Hiring, and Retention

• Collaborate with campus career centers to encourage students, especially students from underrepresented backgrounds in the profession, to consider librarianship as a career through, for example, a job shadowing program with pathways to student worker positions (Irvine)

• Examine and revise hiring procedures and practices to be as inclusive and accessible as possible, e.g., considering the purpose of diversity statements; providing interview questions in advance (Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, Santa Cruz)

• Expand opportunities and increase diversity in the library worker pipeline through providing professional development opportunities and developing a culture of knowledge sharing for all library workers (Irvine)

• Develop pathways for advancement, for student workers to library staff to librarians to administrators, ideally at the current campus (Irvine)

• Support library staff who enroll in degree programs while continuing to work full-time (Irvine)

• Conduct exit interviews when librarians leave employment (Santa Barbara)

Activities & Resources updated on August 25, 2025.