Orientation

Welcome to UF

Welcoming you into our libraries and sharing essentials about the teams and services available to support library employees is important for helping you get situated as a new hire here. There is so much to do and plenty of opportunities to keep you busy for years after a move. Let’s break down some of the two-part orientation in our libraries below by clicking on the different areas.

Our 2-hour orientation event provides you an opportunity to meet and hear brief presentations from the employee-support teams below. This event is required of all new hires. In addition to new employee orientation, general and hurricane emergency preparedness, and DiSC sessions are mandatory for new library employees within your first year. You will be invited to new employee orientation within your first few weeks and to the other sessions as these become available throughout your first year.

UF has orientation pieces to support your earlier weeks at UF too.

Required training from UF must be completed within your first months. Thank you for completing required sessions in a timely manner and helping our libraries stay in compliance with UF. A list of possible sessions you might need for your role is here.
New supervisors in our Libraries must complete the UF Supervisory Challenge within your first two years. This certificate program not only teaches best practices for managing and supervising, participating in the program ensures you know about all of the supports UF offers for new supervisors.
Benefits – As a new hire, you have 60 days from your start date to enroll in benefits. The UFHR benefits office provides informative sessions every other Friday on benefit options, enrollment procedures, and to answer your questions. See upcoming dates here.

Onboarding

Unlike our brief orientation, onboarding is a continuous process that allows you time to learn more about our libraries, UF, and the local community throughout your first year. The vision of our libraries is to ignite curiosity, serve as the locus of knowledge management, and promote intellectual exchange within our diverse global learning community. Continuous learning is part of realizing this and we hope you take time to attend all of our Getting to Know the Smathers Libraries training program to learn about our amazing library services, spaces, collections, and people. Don’t forget to review the external onboarding recommendations below to learn more about supports available to you. Our George A. Smathers Libraries are among the largest university library systems in the U.S. Our library system includes eight branch locations to serve every college and center at UF. We have many physical and digital collections unique to our system, 250 full-time employees, and five million visitors annually.

Learning opportunities for our library employees taught by our library employees

The majority of our learning opportunities are designed and delivered by UF employees for their peers. In fact, our library employees conduct more than 80 sessions each year for library employees, enabling all of us to gain insights into the ways we lead collection development, acquisitions, digitization, lending, conservation, preservation, and making our extensive collections accessible. Our training program 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 what we focus on for employee learning.

Additional opportunities to connect with library employees

Meet our deans. Every half-year, our deans, responsible for guiding our libraries 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.
Attend annual Library Training Program sessions. Recordings and handouts from recent sessions are available: Library Training Program Resources.
Join our Getting to Know the Smathers Libraries training program sessions for an insightful journey into the inner workings of our library 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 events: Spring picnic, Fall convocation, Library Day of Service, and Winter celebration.
Volunteer to table for the libraries.
Take a Virtual tour of each of the Smathers libraries.
Visit here for a list of common acronyms used throughout our libraries.

Library organizations, listservs and conferences

Find learning options from library-related organizations on our website.
Looking for library-related listservs to join? See here.
Looking for library-related conferences to keep current? See here.
Attend one of our library branch workshops. See their calendar here.
Receive information about library employee happenings, items for sale, recommendations, rentals, and other general news with our internal watercooler email list. Sign up here.

More resources for UF Employees

Just for new TEAMS (Technical, Executive, Administrative, and Management Support) employees

Sign up and attend UF’s APA (Academic & Professional Assembly) events to keep up with what’s new at UF and to connect you with others TEAMS employees across UF.
New manager of a program or staff? Ask about being added to our Library Middle Management and Leadership Team.
This handbook serves as a guide for new and existing TEAMS employees.

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

A training program developed by our Library faculty for our Library Faculty.
Your tenure home committee hold annual meetings for Library faculty members in each tenure home.
T&P Support Committee coordinates and provides annual T&P workshops for Library faculty.
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 handbook.

Supports for all UF Employees You can effortlessly immerse yourself in work, hobbies, or social pursuits here. The university provides a platform for you to enhance your skills and knowledge, working alongside supportive colleagues.

UF Dual Career Program resources for UF to collaborate with spouses and domestic partners of newly offered faculty and staff relocating to Gainesville.
Find free and low-cost family resources with Employee Assistance Program (EAP) services.
UF GatorCare has additional wellness opportunities and employee training.
Register for UF employee training sessions.
See UF’s new employee welcome page here.
Browse the Community Interest directory to find others with your interests.

Get to know Gainesville and the surrounding communities A link to upcoming local events, and a list of library employee favorite places to visit and eat is available here.

Thank you for being here!

UF is dedicated to excellence in education and research, and to shaping a better future for Florida, the nation, and the world. Smathers Libraries, and you, are an intricate part of this. We are excited you are sharing your expertise with us!

“Libraries are a cornerstone of democracy—where information is free and equally available to everyone. People tend to take that for granted, and they don’t realize what is at stake when that is put at risk.” ~ Carla Hayden, Librarian of Congress