About the Library

OCOM Library Mission, Vision, & Values

Mission

The OCOM Library works to foster a community of creative and successful scholars and practitioners by promoting information literacy, critical inquiry, the ethical application of research, and a culturally-competent appreciation of East Asian medicine and culture.

Vision

The Library is vital in promoting a culture of research and inquiry in our students, staff and faculty. We strive to:

• Support the learning, teaching, research, and information needs of the OCOM community.
• Provide a space for intellectual curiosity, and encourage self-reflection and personal growth.
• Provide and maintain access to a culturally rich collection of materials that foster a broad understanding of medicine and healing.
• Create an inclusive and supportive environment, and work to ensure that scholars of all backgrounds, experiences, and abilities are treated with equity and respect.
• Support the OCOM community in working towards social justice and health care equity.

The library staff works together as a team in fulfilling our mission.

Values

In support of this mission, the Library is committed to supporting the College Values:

• Excellence: We hold ourselves to high standards, in the services we provide and the knowledge we hold. The library staff strives to be the best acupuncture and Chinese medicine library in the country, both in librarian expertise and services. We value our role in helping students become information literate practitioners, and encourage the ethical application of research.
• Leadership: We value our role as leaders both on the OCOM campus and in the library community, and value the opportunity to learn from one another. We value our role in helping to create research literate practitioners who are able to advocate for acupuncture’s role in the medical community.
• Healing: We value both hard work and play, and encourage self-care, self-empowerment, and professional development. We trust and support one another, and understand that our excitement and passion is contagious; by strengthening ourselves, we bolster the College.
• Innovation: We value innovation in all aspects of our work. The library staff continuously works to create and adjust services to best meet the needs of our community, and we encourage staff to be open to taking risks, be honest in our failures, and be trusting enough in ourselves and in our colleagues to continue to undertake new ventures and be forward-thinking in our work.
• Community: We value cooperative work and inclusivity. We understand that each of us are instrumental in the sustainability of our microcosm, and our collective knowledge is the key to providing exceptional services and building a community of scholars. We are dedicated to equity and social justice, and work towards building an inclusive community not only at our college, but in the larger library community. We value our role in a community of educators, and work to foster relationships with other organizations and libraries.
• Service: We value user experience, and understand that quality information loses its usefulness if it cannot be easily accessed. To this end, we strive to provide personal, compassionate, high-quality reference services. As a teaching library, we are dedicated to creating tools that empower users in taking control of their own research process, but to still feel safe and comfortable asking for help.