The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) invites academic and research libraries to participate in ClimateQUAL, an organizational climate and diversity survey designed specifically for libraries. For over a dozen years, libraries have used ClimateQUAL to gather responses from staff members regarding their institution’s commitment to diversity principles. Libraries use this data to improve their organizational culture in order to deliver superior services to the communities they serve.
ClimateQUAL addresses nine facets of organizational culture that focus on staff perceptions of policies, practices, and procedures. These facets include the environments for justice, leadership, diversity, and innovation, among others. In addition, seven organizational attitude measures capture employees’ level of commitment to the organization, their satisfaction with their work, the extent to which they feel empowered, and other dimensions that reflect workforce morale.
ARL provides a robust results report to each participating library that highlights climate perceptions across 13 demographic categories and their departments/units, along with comments. Libraries can compare their results to aggregated data from past participants. Since 2007, over 10,000 responses have been collected by 65 libraries in three countries.
“Our library team’s great participation in, and response to, the ClimateQUAL survey equipped us to focus on our internal climate and relationships, our values, and the need for everyone to participate in staff development efforts,” said M.J. Tooey of the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
“The Texas A&M University Libraries have used the ClimateQUAL Survey three times over nine years,” said Michael Maciel of Texas A&M University. “Most notable is the consistent and expert support ARL provides throughout the entire process.”
“ClimateQUAL has provided us with opportunities for rich and meaningful conversations at the department and library-wide levels and between library leaders,” said Brian Keith of the University of Florida. “The overlapping foci on leadership, fairness, communication, etc. and on climates for diversity, equity, and inclusion, combined with the fact that comparative statistics are available from our field, make this a unique and truly helpful tool.”
Registration
Registration is ongoing and enables participants to implement a survey at any time during the two ClimateQUAL survey sessions in 2020:
- Session I: January 15–May 31, 2020
- Session II: July 1–December 9, 2020
New participants may register by sending email to climatequal@arl.org. Past participants may register on the ClimateQUAL website.
Registration for the 2020 survey year will close on November 1, 2020.
About the Association of Research Libraries
The Association of Research Libraries (ARL) is a nonprofit organization of 124 research libraries in Canada and the US whose mission is to advance research, learning, and scholarly communication. The Association fosters the open exchange of ideas and expertise, promotes equity and diversity, and pursues advocacy and public policy efforts that reflect the values of the library, scholarly, and higher education communities. ARL forges partnerships and catalyzes the collective efforts of research libraries to enable knowledge creation and to achieve enduring and barrier-free access to information. ARL is on the web at ARL.org.
