Orientation

Most of our learning opportunities are designed for us and delivered by UF employees. Our Library employees teach more than 80 sessions each year for us, enabling all of us to gain insights into collection development, acquisitions, digitization, lending, conservation, preservation, and making our extensive collections accessible. Our training calendar will help you navigate to these events and more. UF’s core values, the Smathers Libraries strategic directions, and academic library employee standards and competencies guide our employee learning focus.

• Meet our deans! Every half-year, our deans, who are responsible for guiding and overseeing the following domains: Administrative Services Assessment and Student Engagement; Faculty Affairs, Access, and Technical Services; Research and Health Sciences; and Scholarly Resources and Services, host a welcoming event just for new hires.

• Join our Getting to Know the Smathers Libraries training program for a journey into the inner workings of our facilities. These are developed with new hires in mind, but anyone is welcome to attend as space allows.

• Join one or more of our 30+ library committees to influence library policies and practices.

• Attend our employee only events: Spring picnic, Fall convocation, Library Day of Service, and Winter celebration.

• Volunteer to table for the libraries when a call goes out to all staff.

• Take a virtual tour of each of the Smathers libraries.

• See a list of common library acronyms used throughout our libraries.

• Learning options from library-related organizations

• Library-related listservs

• Library-related Conferences

• Library branch workshops calendar

• Library Watercooler email list – receive info about library employee happenings, items for sale, recommendations, rentals, and other general news with our internal watercooler email list.

Our hiring process is highly competitive and we are excited you are joining us. Here are some supports for you.

• Support for new managers of a program or staff. Ask about being added to our library middle management team too.

• Handbook for new and existing TEAMS employees.

Tenure and Promotion (T&P) is key to faculty success at UF. Count on these supports throughout your career.

• The Libraries T&P Support Committee put together an annual series of training sessions dedicated to supporting faculty through their career development.

• Your tenure home committee hold annual meetings for Library faculty members in each tenure home.

• Library Faculty Assembly holds monthly meetings for Library faculty.

• Library T&P Committee serves all Library faculty members with their packets and general questions.

• For packet prep, a T&P Trello board is available to copy and UF maintains a UF online Tenure and Promotion Toolkit or Faculty Resource handbook.

You can effortlessly immerse yourself in work, hobbies, or social pursuits in the area. UF provides a platform for you to enhance your skills and knowledge, working alongside supportive colleagues.

• UF’s new employee welcome page.

• UF Dual Career Program resources for UF to collaborate with spouses and domestic partners of newly offered faculty and staff relocating to Gainesville.

• Employee Assistance Program (EAP) offers free and low-cost family support services.

• UF GatorCare has additional wellness opportunities and employee training.

• UF Directory – To opt in to have your professional contact information be publicly available by search, login to one.uf.edu/, Click on profile icon towards the top right, then “View & Update Profile Information”. Scroll all the way down and ensure the Toggle that says “Publish my business contact information” is blue.

• UF employee training sessions.

• Browse UFHR Worklife community, Health and Wellness resource.

Things to do in Gainesville from Visit Gainesville.