Laurie Taylor
Senior Director for Library Technology & Digital Strategies
University of Florida
Todd Digby
Chair of Library Technology Services
University of Florida
In January 2020, the Libraries at the University of Florida created a new division, Library Technology and Digital Strategies, which brought together the Library Technology Services and Digital Partnerships & Strategies Departments. The new group was created to deeply connect technologies and socio-technical practices that embrace maintenance, minimal computing, ethics of care, mutual aid, collaborative practices, generous thinking, shine theory, and other practices to enable compassionate computing as the common thread in all of our work. The work of the new division is both highly technical and deeply rooted in collaboration and equality, following procedural and informational justice, and powering the triangle of satisfaction for all involved. In this presentation, we discuss how we are utilizing socio-technical philosophies and methodologies to enable compassionate computing, and our process for bringing the community members together within the new division as well as for enacting cultural change across the Libraries as a whole. Further, because we began this transition shortly before our libraries closed due to the pandemic, we provide concrete examples of the benefits to our approach in supporting our community, for practicing kindness in crisis as part of compassionate computing.
http://laurientaylor.org/2020/08/05/lts-draft-our-shared-values/