Vision, Mission & Values
Our mission is simple: We Share!
We share expertise, information, technology and space with Edmontonians for learning, connecting, creating, discovering, enjoying and enriching communities.
Our Mission is why we exist and our Vision is the GPS. We’re experts in helping people access the world's information and ideas, opening doors to learning, possibility and growth.
Our vision: EPL is the gathering place for people and ideas, enabling a lifetime of learning, engagement and possibility for every Edmontonian.
As Edmonton’s largest lender of information and entertainment, our greatest passion is creating connections to help, grow, inspire and change.
Our Shared Values are a reflection of who we are and what we believe as an organization. They are an expression of our passionate commitment to share information, ideas, knowledge, resources and expertise with everyone. They describe, define and inspire us.
Our Shared Values document sums this up nicely.
EPL provides library resources and services to Edmontonians that satisfy their curiosity and meet their learning, information and entertainment needs. Intellectual Freedom is a fundamental value at EPL championed and upheld through ensuring access to a wide and diverse range of knowledge, ideas and perspectives.
EPL’s foundational library services include access to physical and digital spaces, collections and programs (with a focus on early and digital literacy) that support the entertainment, recreational, and lifelong learning needs of Edmontonians of all ages and from all backgrounds.
An award-winning library system, EPL continues to push the boundaries for modern library services through access to technology and resources not widely available to Edmontonians.
Ideas of every kind, for everyone.
Over 260,000 Edmontonians regularly use our services. And we love that every person who comes to us brings with them a rich mixture of cultures, values, opinions and beliefs. It’s our role to celebrate this diversity and protect the Intellectual Freedom of our customers.
That means we make all kinds of material available to people, because we believe you’re free to access and develop your own informed opinions and ideas.
"Libraries have a core responsibility to safeguard and facilitate access to constitutionally protected expressions of knowledge, imagination, ideas, and opinion, including those which some individuals and groups consider unconventional, unpopular or unacceptable. To this end, in accordance with their mandates and professional values and standards, libraries provide, defend and promote equitable access to the widest possible variety of expressive content and resist calls for censorship and the adoption of systems that deny or restrict access to resources." — Canadian Federation of Library Associations
We’re bigger than our buildings.
We strengthen neighbourhoods and communities by creating connections. We go beyond traditional and physical boundaries to foster relationships and build dynamic, responsive library services.
EPL's Community-Led Service Philosophy is a framework for EPL to build relationships, and identify and meet customer needs. Our focus is on anyone facing barriers to using our services. This philosophy is all about improving services and finding ways to meet evolving community needs.
We connect, consult and collaborate with individuals and groups to understand the needs of our communities to inform the direction of library work and policies.
