For the last few years, I’ve described my work as values-based. This was something that I saw as directly related to evidence-based library and information practice (EBLIP), as I’m a proponent of making values explicit in decision-making. I cared enough to write a paper on this and apply values-based practice to value/impact work in open educational practice. In the process, I found Scott W. H. Young’s work on values-based library assessment – and later, read Sam Searle’s writing on Values-based procurement and university libraries.
In the EBLIP paper, I observed that:
Just as EBLIP helps to navigate evidence for decision-making and continuous service improvement, values-based practice helps to navigate the values inherent to decision-making in library services and EBLIP processes. 1
I often think that while it’s one thing to be upfront about stating our values (whether professional, individual, or institutional), or to claim that we are values-based, it’s another thing to put this into practice.
Being values-based sounds inherently ‘nice’ or ‘good,’ but I’d question whether the values we bring are always unquestionably good. So, what does it mean to be values-based? 2
Social impact
I experience being values-based as a process where I’m inwardly examining the values impacting my work or that are missing from it, but also turning this awareness outward to understand the impact and alignment of these values in decision-making.
Personally, it requires I’m:
- Conscious of the values I’m aligning decisions with;
- Curious about these values and willing to Critically interrogate them;
- Clear in communicating what values I’m subscribing to; and
- Consistent in actions that align with values – while still being open to navigating the uncertainty of different values or understandings across varied disciplinary and social contexts. 3
In Assessment for Whom: Repositioning Higher Education Assessment as an Ethical and Value-Focused Social Practice, Wall, Hursh, and Rodgers describe ethical and value-based decisions as a “complex social practice,” and I agree. 4 Awareness of the social context we operate in is where we see social value delivered.
Sam Searle has written and spoken on Values-based procurement and describes its social impact factors. To me, her approach ensures that being ‘values-based’ is action-guiding. That is, it’s not only about reflection to identify our values but also identifying “where thoughts and actions diverge from these values” and choosing “courses of action that are consistent with these values.” 5
I’ve already returned to her post several times. I think it addresses the challenge of when being values-based might be seen as conflicting with value.
Values/value
In my review on values-based practice in EBLIP, I documented excluding an article on value-based practice as a business management concept. This was because my paper’s scope was on the process of values being ‘action-guiding’ for library decisions rather than communicating the value of outcomes.
Yet, outcomes are an important and realistic part of this conversation. Value and values can go hand-in-hand, and we need this conversation to ensure that in moving beyond the how to the why, we are still cognisant of impact.
I’ve previously highlighted the tension between values and value in libraries:
Rigling et al. (2018), however, describe how the focus of library research is on “demonstrating library value to external stakeholders as opposed to understanding library values” (para. 11). Likewise, Nicholson (2017) states that “as a profession, we’ve become veritably obsessed with value” (p. 2). This focus on generating “value” is largely reflected in the EBLIP and library assessment literature, where being able to demonstrate and provide evidence of value and impact is an expected outcome. For Drabinski and Walter (2016), “theory and practice should be mutually informative in our field, and inquiry into ‘values’ should occupy as privileged a place as inquiry into ‘value’” (p. 267). 6
While this holds, in this paper, I also defined being values-based in an action-orientated way. I believe this should mean that values are not perceived as being at the expense of value but help to create it in meaningful ways.
In practice
When I consider what this has looked like in practice:
- My collaboration with an open educational practice team has probably been the most significant example of what values-based looks like for me (or perhaps it’s just what I wrote and spoke on the most!). I was privileged to observe and be a part of “deliberate and purposeful community-building predicated on shared values and trust” to create a dashboard that didn’t just meet operational needs but supported shared values.
- Values of belonging and inclusion often align across my organisational and committee work and have led me to ask questions about safety for marginalised groups and encourage further discussion and action when others raise this.
- Those same values led me to suggest a group didn’t pay for a course because it didn’t align with the values in our terms of reference. Any perceived value provided would be at odds with the value and values anticipated by the community the work supported.
- Then, in my research, I’ve sought to understand the implications of different values applied across open scholarship in an international landscape.
Sam Searle captures so well what being values-based looks like in practice and how values can play out in our choices. It speaks to the idea that we do have options in libraries to positively influence and consider what social outcomes we want to achieve. Sam describes:
Understanding what is possible is really important. I do not believe that many library professionals understand our options and how to influence procurement in our organisations. 7
I also look forward to seeing a greater understanding and exploration of the agency and options that libraries have (across many services). And through this, an explicit acknowledgement of values and their application to practice.
- Bell (2022, p. 126) ↩︎
- I’m sure different interpretations and applications exist depending on what values are being subscribed to, and also within different professions or disciplines. I’m limiting myself to mostly drawing on library perspectives and professional experience here (though I welcome other insights). ↩︎
- The alliteration across conscious, curious, critical, clear, and consistent wasn’t intentional, but I’ll take it. ↩︎
- Wall et al. (2014, p. 13) ↩︎
- Miller et al. (2020, p. 354) ↩︎
- Bell (2022, p. 126) ↩︎
- Searle (2023) ↩︎