Mission Statement

You may or may not know that all of our units here at FNU have a mission statement. Over the last year, the library faculty and staff, along with the Library Committee, went through a process of revising the mission statement for the Library. While it might seem like a perfunctory, academic requirement, we learned a lot in the process and are very excited about our new mission statement!

As we often say in the library, it's best to start a project by doing research! We definitely took our own advice and began the revision process by finding articles and other resources on how to write a mission statement. We also looked at the mission statements of other units at FNU and other libraries (both hospital and academic).

One of the things that came up in the literature was that when creating a mission statement, all stakeholders should be involved. Therefore we really wanted to hear what students thought about the library. We asked them two questions:

• What services do you expect from the FNU Library?
• What qualities or characteristics come to mind when you think of the FNU library?

Thanks to those of you who responded to that survey! Here is a graphical look at the answers.

Next we set out to align the Library's mission with that of the University. If you're not familiar with FNU's mission statement, check out the Vision & Mission page. Then we began drafting the actual statement, using wording from the survey results and FNU mission statement. It took several drafts, and while wordsmithing can be painful, it was a good process that meant we chose our words very carefully.

Finally, we had a draft that everyone was happy with:

The mission of the library is to support the curricula and scholarly work of FNU by providing students, faculty, and staff with high quality, readily accessible information resources, highly responsive service, and instruction aimed at improving information literacy. The library is committed to empowering students to use evidence-based resources in preparation for their careers as leaders in primary care.

This draft was officially approved by the Library Committee at its December 2018 meeting. It is posted on the About Us page of the library website.

We are so excited to continue serving all of you by carrying out this mission! Please let us know how we can help!