Library leaders must mobilize to ensure libraries take an active, visible role in building sustainable and resilient communities. Our future depends on citizens who are able to work together with empathy, respect, and understanding to adapt to the many challenges facing society. In 2019, the American Library Association adopted sustainability as a core value of librarianship. We will explore the importance of infusing the new core value of sustainability into everything we do, and demonstrate how libraries that lead into the future using “sustainable thinking” fulfill our mission as libraries in new and innovative ways. “Sustainable Thinking” is a concept that aligns the core values of libraries with the “Triple Bottom Line” definition of sustainability (i.e. the intersection of economic feasibility, environmental stewardship and social equity) to inspire investment and build support for your library in the future.

Librarians make the future every day: we select and acquire, catalog and classify, circulate and preserve, determining along the way what is worth accumulating, sharing, and keeping forever, and what is not. Every time we decide to purchase one book and not another, we use our power to shape the library of the future. But what happens when we want to use that power for transformative change and not just tinkering? How do we upend our own systems and structures in order to produce more just futures? How can librarians change the world? Drawing on lessons learned from the labor movement, this talk develops an analysis of power as something library workers can build with and for each other. Using tools and techniques we already have in our repertoire, we are well-positioned to make another world possible.

Located in downtown Denver, Colorado, the Auraria Campus is home to three institutions of higher education – University of Colorado Denver, Metropolitan State University of Denver, and Community College of Denver – the latter two are Hispanic-Serving Institutions. The Auraria Library serves the campus’ approximately 43,000 students, including many first-generation, underrepresented, and non-traditional students, and sees more than 750,000 visits a year. In 2018, I was hired as Auraria Library’s director. In addition to the challenges of serving three institutions with differing needs, I quickly realized that the library itself was in a state of transition and seeking answers for what was going to come next for the organization.

Library employees are incredibly passionate and dedicated, and it was important to build on the existing work that had happened, while redirecting efforts in respectful and productive ways. This session will provide participants with a practical application of change management elements and approaches including:
 
Internal perspective:

• Discussing the main elements of transformational change which takes an ecosystem approach and where there is a shift in organizational attitudes, beliefs, and cultural values
• Preparing for strategic change by establishing trust and transparency in leadership
• Creating new policies and processes in areas such as hiring, workforce planning, and budgeting
• Building internal capacity through training, recognition, and mentorship
• Considering the human aspect of change management by addressing reactions to and anxiety about change (both at the employee as well as at the administrative levels)

• Developing a robust stakeholder engagement framework to assist with strategic planning
• Telling the library story and raising awareness about its impact for our faculty, staff, and students