UCSF Library

The mission of the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) is Advancing Health Worldwide. To that end, the campus engages in outreach to low-and-middle-income countries through research collaborations and other outreach activities.  The education and research librarians at the UCSF Library actively work with researchers and programs engaged in global health programming and projects, and provide educational support and online training for learners in Africa and other developing countries. UCSF research librarians support those working in UCSF’s Institute for Global Health, the Global Brain Health Institute, and UCSF’s Global Cancer Program, as well as UCSF School of Medicine projects engaging in global health efforts. This poster will describe the global programming activities on campus and librarian involvement in teaching and supporting learners around the world. The poster will also highlight librarian involvement and collaboration on specific systematic review projects involving researchers from Latin America, Mexico, and Africa. Librarian involvement supports the overall campus mission, but has also led to additional projects and greater visibility for library services and librarian expertise. 

Presented at the American Library Association 2024 Conference.

The University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Library has been actively engaged in promoting diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) goals through a variety of approaches, including outreach and education to targeted campus groups, research collaborations, exhibits and public programming, participation in UC-wide groups, and collections. The library has incorporated DEIA into the library’s strategic plan goals, created rubrics for use in the hiring process, and incorporated DEIA activities and goals into the performance evaluation process for library employees. The University of California has also developed transformative publishing agreements with multiple publishers, allowing UC authors the option of publishing their articles open access with no or low article processing charges (APCs). These agreements allow UC authors to maintain their copyrights and encourage young researchers, LGBTQ+ researchers and other minority researchers to publish and promote their projects from the diversity of our campus populations. All of these activities promote UCSF’s PRIDE values of professionalism, respect, integrity, diversity, and excellence. This poster will highlight numerous activities and initiatives both within the library and on the UCSF campus promoting DEIA and beyond that, the campus mission of Advancing Health Worldwide.  

Presented at the American Library Association 2024 Conference.

Libraries strive to increase diversity in the workforce and foster equity and inclusion through the resources and services we provide. Recognizing the inequities and biases that exist within the scholarly publishing ecosystem, the authors created a publicly accessible online resource on the University of California Office of Scholarly Communication website to guide stakeholders to actions they could take to create more equitable scholarly communication environments. The resulting site offers distinct sections for peer reviewers, editorial boards, authors, scholarly publishers, and libraries, each summarizing research into the equity challenges for that group and suggesting actionable steps for addressing these challenges. We hope that, by interacting with this resource, scholarly communication stakeholders will gain a better understanding of the landscape and know how to take action. This poster will present our model for raising awareness of the inequities in the scholarly publishing ecosystem and encouraging participants to take concrete steps to reduce barriers and inequities in scholarly publishing. We will describe how we first identified the need for such a resource, engaged stakeholders in a review of the initial draft, modified that draft in response to feedback, and are currently implementing our recommendations in our library-based publishing setting. We will explore some of the challenges we face in ensuring that the resource remains up-to-date and relevant over time. Suggestions will also be provided for linking to this resource on library and publisher web pages and for contacting the group with suggestions and feedback.

Presented at the American Library Association 2024 Conference.

The mission of the University of California, San Francisco is Advancing Health Worldwide. There are several different programs across the University providing outreach to and collaborating with health providers and learners in developing countries, and programs reaching out to minority students enrolled in high school and undergraduate programs to encourage interest in careers in the health sciences. The UCSF Library has worked to collaborate with campus groups engaged with minority and marginalized populations. This poster will highlight collaborations with our Global Cancer Program, The UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences, The Global Brain Health Institute, SF BUILD (Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity), UCSF PUP (Pre-Health Undergraduate Program), NEXGENE Girls program, and the UCSF Summer Student Research Program. The poster will also highlight other types of research collaborations between Librarians and investigators working on projects focused on diversity, equity, and inclusion, or on minority health both in the U.S., and in low-and-middle-income countries. We will share how these collaborations lead to continuing engagement, published papers, and greater exposure of Librarians as active collaborators in the University’s educational and research enterprise. 

Presented at the 2023 American Library Association Conference.