About Us

Queen’s University Library inspires learning, sparks creativity and builds community. Entering our libraries – virtual and physical – our students and faculty feel the world at their fingertips, the knowledge of the ages and the potential of the future. Librarians and staff work closely with students and faculty in every discipline and in the spaces where they intersect.

We are your library. If there is something we can help you with, please let us know

Values

We find ourselves, as we often do, in a period of change filled with both challenges and opportunities. These values serve as guiding principles that shape how we relate and interact with each other, helping us foster collaboration and build trust internally and externally with the communities that we serve. Values create a shared understanding of what is important to Queen’s University Library.

While these values may not provide precise instructions on how we make decisions, they offer a framework for ethical and consistent decision-making, encouraging us to explore alternative solutions when the current options seem insufficient. Values encourage us to be intentional and mindful in our choices, rather than hasty or accidental. They guide us to think critically, steering us away from arbitrary actions or simply relying on past practices.

Collaboration

We foster enthusiastic collaboration within and beyond the Queen’s University Library, encouraging interdisciplinary partnerships, community outreach, and service excellence. We exhibit inspiring energy for our work to build connections locally, regionally, and globally.

Curiosity and Learning

We cultivate curiosity for all through meaningful experimentation, reflective practice, and embracing mistakes as an essential part of learning and growth. Our approach sparks inquiry and imagination while reinforcing evidence-based learning, assessment, and intellectual freedom.

Inclusion, Diversity, and Belonging

We champion inclusion, diversity, and belonging within the Queen’s University Library and beyond by weaving fairness, accessibility, and equity into the fabric of everything we do.

Building Trust

We nurture honesty, civility, and accountability, recognizing trust as a cornerstone for growth, innovation, and collaboration, building confidence in ourselves, each other, and the institution.

Wellbeing and Connection

We advocate for individual and community wellbeing, fostering psychological safety, connection, and care in our work. We actively build a culture of support and enthusiasm, cultivating safety, collaboration, and fun.

Strategic Priorities

In 2022 Queen’s University Library employees worked together to create a forward looking and innovative three-year strategic plan. Priorities were identified using open discussion and feedback among all departments and teams across the library and archives.

The resulting list of fifteen strategic priorities reflected university priorities and emerging opportunities and trends specific to research libraries. Out of this, the library formed groups of experts to guide, evolve, and execute this important work. This report briefly outlines meaningful progress and positive impact of the efforts of library staff to advance these priorities from 2022- 2025, in addition to identifying barriers encountered along the way and considerations for the future.

With the sunsetting of the 2022-25 strategic priority groups, five library steering groups are being created to prioritize future work, improve communications pathways, and provide more inclusive opportunities for participation. These groups were launched in the spring of 2026 with intentional and clear structures that are the result of engagement with employees. In many cases, the steering groups will build on successes, processes, and learnings of the 2022-25 strategic priority groups, as they take us in new and interesting directions that will expand and enhance the positive impact of Queen’s University Library in the context of the inspiring mission and vision of Queen’s University.

Service Philosophy

Queen’s University Library is a welcoming, inclusive environment that provides an exceptional student learning experience and facilitates research excellence.

We will:

Seek opportunities for meaningful interactions with you.
Adapt to meet your needs, and provide accessible, quality service that is respectful, convenient, and efficient.
Share our expertise and foster your ability to navigate the world of information.
Build long term, supportive, attentive relationships in an effort to anticipate and exceed your expectations.
Work together as a team to facilitate learning and innovation to support academic programs and research.

Collaborations 

Our best innovations happen through collaboration – across the library, with our faculties and schools and through our regional, national, and international partnerships.

Our collaborations include: 