Ensuring that your library is welcoming and inclusive to a diverse range of patrons and that everyone has equal access to resources and opportunities is at the absolute heart of EDI for libraries.

There are two main crunch points which can make or break a patron's experience at the library.

• ■ Does the library have appropriate resources and are they accessible?

• ■ Are the staff welcoming, helpful, understanding and knowledgeable about other people's differences and needs?

These may only be two measures, but you are probably looking at them and thinking, ‘Well that's everything!’, which is exactly the point. Our core goal when promoting EDI within libraries is to ensure inclusion of all patrons, equity of access and diversity of resources.

Front line staff

The people who library users see around the library daily are the heart of the library. This might often be quite junior members of staff involved in working on a circulation desk or in shelf stacking. To ensure a library is led by EDI values, these highly visible members of staff need to be supported in creating an inclusive and equitable space and service. The ethos of the library as an EDI directed space should be set from the most senior levels, the library director and senior management team, but this ethos cannot be left simply to trickle down. This rarely works! Instead, line managers should deliberately train and support more junior members of staff in how to embed thoughts and actions around EDI throughout their roles.