Features
Gathering Information for Strategic Planning in Libraries
Information is the lifeblood of strategically directing and managing any organization.
New Planning For Results
Pickaway County District Public Library needed a long–range plan with community input.
Creating a Successful Strategic Plan
There are many important steps to implementing a successful strategic plan. Ignoring even one can lead to failure.
Long Range Planning and Strategies
There are many reasons we give for not creating a strategic plan for our organizations. These reasons can range from not having the time to simply not knowing how to do it.
We are all so busy trying to serve our patrons and keep up with the present that we really don't have time to plan what direction our organizations will take in the future. Our approach seems to be: Why plan? We'll just keep doing what we have been doing. It's worked so far, hasn't it?
But in these trying economic times, can we afford NOT to plan? The process takes time, but in the end your organization will have a guide for the direction it will take in the future.
Highlighted in this issue are methods to help you deal with the planning process and descriptions of the processes several organizations have used to create their own strategic plans.
State Librarian’s Report
The charge of the Commission is to investigate how best to construct a robust multi–type resource sharing system that encourages the sharing of both virtual and physical resources.
Resource sharing is not new in Ohio where OCLC was born in the 1970's. In the late 90's the work of the first Statewide Resource Sharing Committee resulted in MORE which facilitated sharing library materials among the public and school libraries. Since those efforts there have been a number of other successful collaborative projects through which libraries are sharing physical and virtual resources. Technological advances make sharing of resources much easier. The difficult economic environment facing all libraries has forced them to look for partners to make more effective use of resources.
With this in mind, the State Library Board created the second Resource Sharing Commission, naming individuals from the public, school and academic library communities. The vision of the first Resource Sharing Commission remains true: Any Ohio resident can get whatever library material she or he wants from anywhere, any time.
The charge of the Commission is to investigate how best to construct a robust multi–type resource sharing system that encourages the sharing of both virtual and physical resources.
In order to plan our strategy, several Task Force Groups are being created:
- Management Task Force which will address governance, policy making and funding;
- Delivery Task Force which will deal with all aspects of delivery of physical material;
- Environmental Scan Task Force which will identify the current state and salient issues of resource sharing;
- Electronic Resources Task Force which will examine how we currently share electronic resources (including databases, digitized material and ebooks) and suggest more efficient and cost–effective models;
- Brokering Task Force which will address how we achieve communication across integrated library systems.
Your help is instrumental in making true statewide resource sharing a reality. Please submit nominations for the Task Forces to Roger Verny at rverny@sloma.state.oh.us by May 10th. Task Force meetings will begin in June, July and August.
If you would like to follow the progress of the Task Forces, or for more information go to http://winslo.state.oh.us/resourcesharing.html.
