It’s over! This week has been simultaneously very long and quick as a whirlwind. As with most intense experiences, it’s going to take me some time to process. Sandra and June summed up a lot of things for us today:

• Before you can get started, you need to convince your board and staff that it is worthwhile for you all to go on this journey. You’ll all be in it together, so you need to get on board from the get-go.
• If the board is reluctant to form a community planning committee, argue that it would be better to have a more representative group demographically (than your board, which is more than likely not a demographically representative group). There is an increasing distrust in government. The way we avoid that is to reach out to the community, engage people who we want to support us, and create new advocates. Planning with the community is a perfect opportunity.
• Whether you realize it or not, what you’re doing now is a conscious choice to continue on a particular path. You have the ability and control to do something different if you make the choice. Sandra and June are encouraging us to make that choice within the framework they’ve provided, a framework that puts users first. (Often, the path we’re on is set up to put staff, or just some staff, first.)
• It’s important to remember all the little things when you plan to make changes in the way you spend money on collections. When do your database subscriptions come up for renewal? What standing orders do you have? Work the ability/timing to change these things into your plan.
• It should become a habit to link all decisions to the plan. If you let the plan slip from your memory, the entire process will have been a waste of a lot of people’s time.
• There is little to be gained from slowly changing things. Plan to get things done efficiently.
• We need to intentionally rob Peter to pay Paul when reallocating resources and match new with eliminated and modified activities.
• We’re talking about providing the reference service that people really want, not the reference service that we want them to want. This means that our definition of reference must change.
• The idea of reference resources we hang on to (print especially) “just in case” is outmoded and does not make sense. We need to let go! As far as electronic resources go, we must be looking at the cost per use for everything. Set a standard/threshold that you commit to adhere to and then get rid of things that don’t meet it. Then reallocate the money to something your users actually care about. It doesn’t matter how librarians like to find information if the library’s users like to find it another way. We need to adapt to them, not the other way around.
• It is important to monitor timelines and deadlines – did X service get eliminated by X date? Also very important: what happened after we made the change?
• Lack of monitoring translates to the staff as a lack of commitment from management – why should I care if no one’s keeping track?
• Do you monitor daily – weekly – monthly – quarterly – semi-annually – annually? Set yourself up for success: monitor monthly toward targets in the objective. More regular updates/discussions about implementation are appropriate.
• Implementation and organizational competencies: date-based
• Progress toward targets in the objectives: target-based

Sandra and June were very cognizant of how overwhelmed (with opportunity) many of us have been feeling this week. We can see that we have so far to go, and for many of us middle managers, organization-wide change might seem out of reach. They offered us this advice: Start! Move forward with your successes. At the very least, start looking at what activities are effective, how staff are spending their time, what might be more effective. Even if it’s just within one department, you can start to better serve your users a little bit at a time. While you’re at it, you can work on getting the entire organization on the road to planning with users in mind.

I feel very lucky to have been able to take part in this boot camp. Not only have I learned so much, which has helped develop me as a professional and will end up helping my library and my community, I’ve become a part of a network of dynamic, creative people I’ll be able to continue learning with into the future. I’m so excited to see what we can do.