Strategic aims

We commit to creating, interpreting and celebrating collections that reflect our whole society, using inclusive language.

This is an opportunity to challenge the organisation's unconscious bias and to become aware of the stories we hold and how we describe them. We have a duty to capture stories from the whole spectrum of communities in Scotland.

We will demonstrate and implement accessibility requirements across the organisation.

Digital, as well as physical accessibility, are both key areas of work that each and every team must consider and plan around.

We will ensure EDI is woven into our public offering.

Our current audience engagement activities meet the needs of a specific section of society. We know this through our audience research. For us to appeal to wider audiences, we must make a much more concerted effort to embed EDI into all of our public engagement work.

To do this, we will partner in equitable ways by:

• Being open, transparent, accountable and participatory in our approaches.
• Creating supporting mechanisms for our partners and stakeholders to engage in these practices with us.
• Continuing to develop our understanding of who is using our services and who we are not reaching.

We will highlight EDI within our collections.

There are incredible things within our collections. It's important that we are uplifting and celebrating the voices of marginalised people, whether through direct examples from the collections or (re)interpretation of our well-known collections, by bringing in perspectives from a range of marginalised voices too.

We will cultivate a sense of openness and opportunity for staff and the public to engage in conversations around topics connected to EDI.

We will continue to build on the training and engagement with staff around EDI topics, increasing awareness and knowledge and creating ongoing opportunities for staff to have conversations both about these topics and how these relate to the work of the Library.

We will continue to create opportunities for constructive and difficult conversations and ways to build understanding and empathy. We will provide resources and opportunities that empower staff to make changes through personal action.

We will champion and focus on systemic and structural change, ensuring that EDI work is embedded into the structure and systems of the organisation.

This is a chance for the Library to re-evaluate and review the processes and policies we have in place and consider how any structural barriers can be removed. We will consider and test more intersectional ways of working.

We will explore more inclusive methods of recruitment and retention for the workforce.

We will research, test and experiment with recruitment and consider actions and work needed to ensure that marginalised workers feel included and welcomed by the organisation. We will create a culture where staff can raise concerns through robust and effective reporting and supporting procedures. We will establish parameters for EDI data and enable people to access this data more effectively (while protecting individuals' privacy).