What is Mutual Benefit

Miami University Libraries harnessed the power of asset mapping to create and manage eight remote digital projects during the COVID-19 pandemic, drawing on library staff and students from across the university. This chapter documents the steps and actions and offers insights into techniques and approaches that may be adopted under different circumstances. Asset mapping facilitated matching available staff and skills with available projects and resulted in a dramatic increase in productivity. Properly deploying asset mapping involves identifying ways to provide benefit to all involved parties. Special collections used the quarantine to jumpstart alliances with other departments, who provided staff time, skill, and labor, but the initiative's success is demonstrated not merely by productivity during quarantine but staff interest in maintaining a degree of involvement afterward.