3. Guiding Principles
The following principles underpin our commitment to diversity and inclusion.
| Principle | What this means for Libraries Tasmania |
| We are committed to promoting diversity and inclusion and cultural safety across our collections, services, spaces and programs. | We welcome everyone regardless of the characteristics that makes people unique including but not limited to physical or cognitive ability, literacy abilities, age, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, sexual orientation, or financial situation. We take a holistic and intersectional approach to diversity recognising that the concept of identity is complex. We celebrate the diversity of the Tasmanian community and value the benefits this diversity brings. We embed diversity and inclusion best practices in our policies, procedures, services and facilities. |
| Everyone who visits a Libraries Tasmania physical or online site feels safe, respected, included and connected. | We want people to feel welcome from the first moment they engage with our staff and services. We aim to provide spaces that are usable by all people, promoting an individual’s access and independence. We use inclusive language in our communications and are responsive to the needs of individuals in our policies and practices. We seek to relate to more users, including potential users through our communication and promotional activities. |
| Our planning and service delivery considers the needs of all people in the community. | We invite the public to have a voice in creating safe, collaborative places, collections, and services, through mechanisms such as consultation and co-design. We partner with other organisations that align with our Strategic Directions and values to expand our service offerings, reach broader audiences, and leverage resources. |
| We provide everyone with the opportunity to participate in community life and to contribute to society. | We support the fundamental human rights for free access to information and uphold the right of individuals to set and follow their own standards for acceptable reading materials. We support social and digital inclusion by providing access to information, knowledge, ideas, computers, and the internet to everyone. We promote and provide support for people to use our services, especially those who may not have previously thought it was for them. We offer most of our services and programs for free or at a low cost. We take our services to where people are through outreach activities such as at community-based centres and local events. |
| Our collections reflect the diversity of the communities we serve. | We manage and curate lending collection areas on a state-wide basis that includes a range of formats and topics and interests reflecting the diverse needs and lived experiences of our users. We collect and preserve Tasmania’s documentary heritage materials that are representative of Tasmania’s diverse society and seek to make this information available to anyone who wishes to use it. We curate and prioritise exhibitions that explore and celebrate diversity, equity, and inclusion as these relate to the Tasmanian story. We provide multiple ways to help users find what they are looking for including signage, catalogues and navigation tools when visiting our locations or viewing our collections online. |
| We champion lifelong learning and the pursuit of knowledge for people at all stages of life. | We focus on adult literacy and digital literacy skill development to help more people to meet the demands of modern work and life. We build strong literacy foundations through our early learning programs. We help people find information about learning and studying as an adult in Tasmania. We empower people to think critically about information through media and information literacy support. |
| Our staff have the knowledge, skills and capacity to support our diversity and inclusion agenda. | We value and support the diversity of our workforce and strive to build on this. We uphold and adhere to workforce diversity and inclusion principles for recruitment and selection in accordance with the State Service Diversity and Inclusion Policy. We prioritise staff professional learning on topics relating to diversity and inclusion and engaging effectively with traditionally under-served groups. We commit to providing a consistent standard of service across our public sites so people can expect the same standard regardless of which Libraries Tasmania location they are visiting. We support our staff to speak up and act if they witness unacceptable behaviour in accordance with our Responsible Conduct Policy. |