I have a confession to make. I fear that I have become the devil’s advocate of the group. There are portions of the planning process that seem illogical to me, and I have also been concerned about the amount of time it would seem like it would take to accomplish the Planning for Results process. That said, for every question that I raise, several participants who have been through the process chime in with testimonies on how well the system works, and how fast and easy it is to implement. The presenters (obviously) claim this too, and I admit that there is something to be said for the fact that this system has been tested widely and revised extensively to address any problems.
I am beginning to think that it may be necessary to “trust the process” in the same way that one would trust a 12-step program, and question/evaluate only after the entire process has been implemented. My library would have nothing to lose, and everything to gain with this strategy. There is no other well-tested and widely accepted system for library planning in existence right now. So it certainly makes sense to give it a whirl before trying out other ideas.
Morning Session
Every morning of the training has started with a brief review of what was covered the previous day, and a chance to address any questions that participants may have. Today was no exception. In addition, Sandra Nelson provided us with the bonus information of how the planning process fits in with other administrative tasks in case your library (like mine) needs a complete makeover in terms of planning, policies, job descriptions, etc. Here’s how it should look:
- Strategic Plan
- Program of Service (if required by the state)
- Job Descriptions
- Performance Evaluations
- Policies
Nelson completed this entire series of events with one library in approximately one year.
Allocating Materials Resources
The approach to allocating materials resources parallels that of allocating staff and facilities resources, so the system was becoming familiar to us by today. Individually, we completed a numeric analysis of materials resources based on a case study (which mostly proved that many of us were not very good at math). Then we completed an activity that encouraged us to consider the current situation and what it would take to reach a particular goal in terms of collection development.
As with the other resource areas we examined, workforms are available in the Managing forResults book to address issues related to collection development.
We then practiced working with a gap analysis to address a particular activity related to collection development and reviewed the steps for…
Implementing Your Plan: Materials
- Review materials budget allocations and revise as needed
- Review selection guidelines and revise as needed
- Review standing orders and revise as needed (Nelson recommended against standing orders in general - particularly for reference materials - and suggested a review of standing orders of popular materials by author at least once a year)
- Review collection and weed as needed (Nelson recommended weeding at least 5-10% of the collection on an annual basis with some areas - such as medicine - done more frequently [or maintaining electronic information on this topic only])
- Identify collection development training needs and develop a training plan
As with staffing and facilities, we examined the data needed, issues to be resolved, benefits and risks involved with each of the above questions.
Creating Policies For Results
June Garcia began this part of the training with a couple of hypothetical scenarios to get participants thinking about the importance of library policies.
For the purpose of this workshop, library policies were defined as follows:
The generic term used for the policy statement, regulations, procedures and
guidelines (if any) that apply to a specific issue
A policy manual was defined as:
A collection of library policy statements. Policy manuals may include
regulations, procedures, and guidelines. Policy manuals are normally available
in print format and may be available electronically as well.
Detailed definitions were also provided for the following terms (significantly abbreviated definitions are included below):
practice - the way things are actually done in your library
policy statement - WHAT must be done to support the policy (often measures how many, when, where, how long, and who)
procedure - HOW the staff will carry out the policy and regulations
guideline - BEST PRACTICES that provide suggestions on how to implement policy statements, regulations, and procedures
Each library policy that appears in the policy manual will contain a policy statement, regulations, procedures, and (sometimes) guidelines. While all of these items will eventually be grouped together in the manual, the policy statements and regulations will be created and approved by the library board before the procedures and guidelines are put into place to avoid wasting time developing procedures and guidelines for policy statements and regulations that may not be approved or may be modified. A sample list of public service policy categories and subjects is included in our workbooks.
A list of tasks and steps was also provided for:
A. Policy Audit Inventory
B. Policy Audit Assesssment
C. Policy Development
D. Policy Implementation
A list of suggested evaluation criteria was also provided for policy statements, regulations and procedures. In addition to the recommended criteria, the presenters also gave examples of additional criteria that could be created by an individual library to meet their community’s particular needs (a resounding theme throughout all of these processes).
Garcia suggested that each policy should include an implementation date as well as an approval date/by whom. One participant added that each of her library’s policies also includes a date for review/update. “See also” references may also be used to refer the reader to related policies.
Examples of library policies and procedures are available at www.webjunction.org. However, Garcia emphasized that while looking at other library policies can be useful in deciding on what type of language to use, the policies themselves should be unique to each library since they will be driven by the particular service responses selected by that library.
Rather than sample policies, Garcia has provided templates for many common library policies in the book Creating Policies for Results. While not recommending any particular approach, these templates insure that most of the important issues will be considered when creating library policies (which I believe will be extremely useful). A policy element review summary is also included in our workshop packets. The ALA web page (www.ala.org) also provides that association’s decisions on a variety of controversial topics that may be addressed in a library’s policy manual.
While much of a library’s policy manual will be considered to be an internal document, libraries may want to prepare the policy statement and regulations related to issues such as a library’s code of conduct, unattended children, Internet or meeting room use, in a format that will be readily available to present to the public.
Other useful handouts included in the workbooks to help in the creation of policies are a list of “Points to Remember” when writing policies, a list of “Policy Development Challenges” and a “Policy and Regulations Worksheet.”
Library policies should be reviewed at least once a year (one library schedules one board meeting per year to review library policies, but others do sections at each board meeting throughout the year) or any time that an issue that hasn’t previously been considered arises (preferably in another library).
Implementing Your Plan
After answering questions, Sandra Nelson picked up this segment of the training with an overview of where participants can find information related to the following resources:
staff - Staffing for Results, Managing for Results, and
(the forthcoming) HR for Results
facilities - Managing for Results and the forthcoming Facilities
for Results
collection - Managing for Results (a Collection for Results
book is planned, but not currently in the works)
technology - the new Technology for Results
Then (in part to assuage my concerns about how long it looked like this process could drag out) Nelson outlined the entire process in terms of how long each segment would take to accomplish. It broke down roughly as follows:
Week 1-3 or 4
Planning Committee
Community Analysis
Identified Community Needs
Identified Library Priorities (with staff and board)
Mission statement can be developed at this point, if desired
Week 4 or 5
Goals (outcomes)
Objectives (how to measure progress)
Basic goals and objectives can be shared with the public at this point, if desired
Week 5 or 6
Brainstorming Possible Activities
Effectiveness Evaluation of Activities
Identify Preliminary Activities
a luncheon/party can be provided for the planning committee at this stage, if desired
Week 6 or 7 to Week 8 or 10
Resource Allocation / Data Collection (gap analysis)
Week 9 -11
Final Activities determined
Goals and objectives with sample activities can be shared with the public at this point if not done earlier
(The final step in this process is monitoring, which we will address in tomorrow’s session.)
Nelson, who isn’t a fan of mission statements, related a study in which a researcher examined mission statements for various occupations. Those for fire and police departments tended to be the most effective, whereas those for libraries were generally at the bottom of the barrel because all libraries essentially claimed to do all things for all people.
Nelson suggested that catchy slogans might be more effective for libraries than mission statements. The following ideas were shared (some of which come from actual libraries);
“Connecting People and Information”
“First Destination for Fact and Fiction”
“Mulch for the Mind”
Strategic Initiatives
This last major segment of the day was addressed by June Garcia. While this part of the planning process is still under construction, Garcia provided the following working definition:
Strategic initiatives describe a desired state of organizational efficiency
or capacity necessary to support/enable the library to achieve its service
goals
A handout on strategic initiatives further defined areas in which they could be developed (such as collections, technology, facilities, staff development, organizational structure, finance, measurement and evaluation, operational efficiencies, policies, external partnerships, marketing and public relations, etc.)
While goals are stated in relationship to the benefits to the audience, strategic initiatives are written from the library’s perspective (”the library will…”). Strategic initiatives are designed to address broad issues rather than specific tasks, and they are always subordinate to a library’s goals.
It was strongly emphasized that NOT EVERY LIBRARY NEEDS STRATEGIC INITIATIVES. They were generally seen to be more useful for libraries with multiple units (except where they are useful for political purposes). Garcia appears to be a stronger proponent of strategic initiatives than Nelson, and how they will ultimately fit into the Implementing Results framework has yet to be determined.
Activity Plans
Nelson concluded today’s session with a brief presentation of worksheets for activity plans:
- The “Basic Activity Plan” worksheet is designed for activities that are currently in place or will be easy to implement
- The “Complex/Expensive Activity Plan” worksheet is to be used for activities that require more detailed planning. This worksheet also contains a simple line-item budget form to plan specific activities. These worksheets would then be gathered together and added up (with other expenses) to determine the library’s overall line-item budget.
The question of technology was raised, and it was emphasized that technological advances should only be implemented if/when they fall into the service responses that have been identified in the library’s strategic plan. New technologies in and of themselves should not drive the direction of library services.
Summary
Today’s workshops brought together the pieces of the planning process into a unified whole.
Tomorrow, we will move on to what to do once everything comes together
Stay tuned…
