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Who uses Long Range Planning?
11:17 AM EDT 4/23/08
As part of a library school student team gathering info on Illinois public libraries, I discovered that none of the 3 libraries we investigated actively adhered to their Long Range Planning document. Is this a trend? What is replacing it? Any comments from managers or directors is appreciated.
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Re: Who uses Long Range Planning?
12:13 PM EDT 4/23/08
as a reply to Kathy Wellington.
Generally speaking in my experience it's not intentional...
Some public libraries spend a lot of time being reactive to situations and dealing with brush fires, rather than being pro-active and using their planning documents to avoid issues.
Alternatively, individuals/organizations when doing their long-range planning look at best case and wish list items, and when reality sets in that funding those initiatives would require cutting existing programs or efforts it becomes very hard to do.
Of course, every situation is different, I don't know that there is one easy answer for the reasons why, but those are two things I see on a regular basis..
-Joe
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Re: Who uses Long Range Planning?
5:13 PM EDT 4/23/08
as a reply to Kathy Wellington.
I think my library (and me) were of those three, so I'd best comment.
I'm planning to update our long-range plan this next contract year (Nov. to Oct. in my case) ... because it's a useful exercise and forces one to look at choices ... but I'm not likely to look at the document much after it's made. The future, in the sense of technology and the options it forces upon us, moves too quickly.
We can make general, strategic, responses but specific, tactical, moves *must* be suspect when more than 12 to 18 months have past. Sometimes sooner.
Also, many libraries (like mine) are part of automation consortia. The "fact of membership" is at least as important as the specific vendor and the timetable for vendor review isn't necessarily something the individual library controls.
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