WebJunction

Dear George:
 
I run a small public library, and my board has decided we need to do some long-term planning. I can't even plan a family weekend at the shore, so I have no idea what they expect of me. Can you help?

Perplexed in Planning

Dear Pip:

Funny you should ask. When your question came into "I Am Curious, George" World Headquarters, I happened to be in a meeting with the management team of WebJunction. The meeting facilitator (the multi talented herein oft cited Barbara Smith) gave us the following hierarchy as a way of thinking about planning.

• Vision
• Mission
• Goals
• Strategy
• Tactics

The "vision" is a description of what the world would look like if the library did its job perfectly.

The "mission" is a fairly general description of why the library exists, and how it will deliver the services that would bring the vision closer to reality.

The "goals" are the specific milestones your library will reach within a given period of time. These should help you deliver on your mission.

The "strategy" is the underpinning for the goals. The strategy should describe the long range advantage the library will gain by accomplishing the goals.

The "tactics" are the specific steps you will take, informed by the strategy, that will allow you to complete the goals.

You should approach these five steps in the order listed. You need to know what you want your community to be before you can start to decide what the library's mission is. You can't really set any goals unless your library has a reason for existing (the mission). And so on.

All five of these steps need to be under girded by the values of your library — intellectual freedom, transparency in governance, integrity and service in dealing with your customers — that have been specifically and publicly enumerated after being decided upon by your Board and staff.

Let's see how this would play out in a VERY simple way:

Vision: Utopiaville will be a community that values learning, understanding, and a diversity of ideas.

Mission: The Utopiaville Public Library will be a vibrant community of learners of all ages. The Library will offer educational, informational, and cultural experiences to the people of Utopia County in a wide variety of media and formats.

Goal: To build a new North Utopiaville Branch Library. (This would be one of several goals, more than likely.)

Strategy: The North Utopiaville Branch Library will allow us to conveniently serve the newest subdivision in the county, and take pressure off Main Library. Also, North Utopiaville will soon have two members on the Utopia County Commission, and they are already asking for improved service in their area

Tactics: Have the Board President talk to the developer about donating land for the library. Seek an additional allocation of funds from the North Utopiaville Town Council and the Utopia County Commission to support the library. Start canvassing the residents of the area for ideas about what services they might want.

This is only one model for doing planning. The Public Library Association has published a very well known series of books under the general title "Planning for Results" (see too the workforms associated with the New Planning for Results). OCLC's 2004 book, The 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition describes another way of planning by analyzing what is happening in your environment.

Of course, your fellow community members at WebJunction have contributed valuable content on this topic. Check out the Tools for Planning webinar archive and quick links as well as Long-Range Planning for Public Libraries contributed by the community partners at WebJunction-CT. And one more not-to-miss planning tool, New Pathways to Planning, is made available through community partners in Kansas.

And don't worry: if your relatives are anything like mine, planning a library is considerably easier than planning a family weekend outing!

Futuristically yours,
 
George

If you’re curious and have a question for George, send an email to community@webjunction.org. 

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