Strategic Planning Steering Committee

April 10, 2002

4:00 - 5:00 p.m. Room 222

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Present: Jennifer Younger, Laura Bayard, Gay Dannelly, Laura Fuderer, Diane Gram, Parker Ladwig, Eric Morgan, Sandy Stellema, Marsha Stevenson, Scott Van Jacob, Melodie Eiteljorge, Jo Bessler

Absent: Dan Marmion, Cameron Tuai

Issue 1, Part 1: Welcome and introductions--Jennifer Younger (5 min.)

Issue 2: Roles and responsibilities on the committee--Jennifer Younger (10 min.)

Desired outcome: Know the roles each of us on the committee will play

Outcome: Kathy Blackstead, Kelly Koski, and Jo Bessler will serve on the committee as they are needed.

Melodie will provide administrative support--listserv moderator, Web site maintenance, scheduling, coordinating documents. It will be important for all members to have CorporateTime as up-to-date as possible.

Parker will keep us on track with planning activities and handle agendas which will tell us what issues are coming and the desired outcomes. He will also help synthesize the results of our work.

Roles for the rest of the committee. You are not advocates for your division or department or program because the Provost does not want minor adjustment across the board, but rather a set of priorities for improving some areas and not advancing others. You have been selected because you are knowledgeable, and Associate Directors will convey your role in department meetings. You are all very busy, so we will try to be economical in terms of meetings. You should all have copies of the libraries self-study. You should look at Appendix 1.1, the table of contents, and also Sections 6 and 7 on strategic planning. Throughout our work, you will need to refer to it.

Issue 1, Part 2: Overview of charge from the Provost--Jennifer Younger (10 min.)

Desired outcome: Know the task we have been assigned and understand that this effort is only the first phase of a complete plan

Outcome: Two handouts: Quest for Leadership and charge from the Provost. These are both on the committee's Web site. Please notice that in Quest for Leadership our current effort is not really a complete strategic plan. This effort is driven by the University's need to set priorities for fundraising. We are asked to provide our aspirations, i.e., where we're going, to determine what resources, especially funding, are needed to get us there, and to set priorities. We should concentrate on strategic thinking, and not on an operational plan. We will be working in parallel with other academic units on campus, sometimes leading, sometimes following. We will ask subject librarians/liaisons to talk to their departments, institutes, or centers to keep us informed. This will be discussed at our next meeting.

Issue 3: Examples of strategic thinking vs. strategic planning--Parker Ladwig (5 min.)

Desired outcome: Understand the difference between strategy as plan and strategy as aspiration, niche, position, etc.

Outcome: We should convey to the library that our effort is not to create a complete strategic plan and thus some of our aspirations may not be implementable. However, we want to be able to use our aspirations when we do create a plan at a later date. So, this could be called phase one of a complete operational strategic plan. Also, the definition of strategy is different than what you might expect. The usual definition is "means to an end." What the provost wants is for us to come up with aspirations and then come up with means, so strategy is defined as "aspirations, goals, niche, or position." Strategic thinking is about where we want to be, our position, or our niche in ten years. It is also about where we don't want to be in ten years. As the person responsible for planning, I will set up agendas that align with a strategic planning process so that you don't have to worry about the process. If you find things that might be interesting concerning the process, I would be glad to read and synthesize them for the group. In other words, you should feel free to be creative, to think strategically.

Issue 4: Discussion of likely form of the final report due October 15, 2002--Jennifer Younger (20 min.)

Desired outcome: Have a clear picture of the major sections and sample content of the final report

Outcome: The deadline for the interim report is August 15 and for the final report in October. Then a campus coordinating committee will decide what should go forward to the Board of Trustees in May 2003. Once the Board has approved the plans, we'll know which of the libraries' aspirations and priorities were accepted.

So, we want investment in developing our plan that is appropriate for the payoff, and we want to understand the time-frame in which it might pay off. A large part of where we want to go is already known from our self-study, but we still need to look around on campus, reach out in parallel. When library employees ask "What's in it for me?" we should answer frankly, "Maybe nothing in some cases," and this reality should be communicated in an open forum. This opportunity, though, is one we can't pass up because it helps us think about what we want to do and what we don't.

For the final report, we want are required to provide, first, an executive summary on no more than 500 words. This will likely be all that some in the University administration will be able to read. Second, the report itself can be no more than 20 pages. It will have the following sections: 1-2 pages on where we are--this will be taken from our recent self-study; a section on our aspirations for the next 10 years--we will have to use specialized indicators because measurements for ARL rankings, for example, have gaps that can't be overcome realistically; a section on how we propose to reach our aspirations, including funding from fundraising, grants, and redirecting our current resources; and finally, a section on our priorities--the sky is not the limit because we are being asked to build on our strengths and look for areas where we can really make a difference. Our aspirations will put the library in two roles: as a follower of what other academic units are doing in some cases, and in others, as a leaders for the University.

Issue 5: Discussion of script for subject librarians/liaisons--Parker Ladwig

Desired outcome: Approve script with minor edits

Outcome: This discussion was postponed until the next meeting.

Issue 6: Next steps--Parker Ladwig (5 min.)

Desired outcome: Review likely agenda for next meeting

Outcome: If we meet once every two weeks, we only have 12 meetings until October 15. As a result, we will sometimes have to meet without full attendance.

JY: Our agenda for the next meeting should include the following:

Recap of this meeting

Discussion of information gathering and how we want subject librarians/liaisons to communicate with their departments

Discussion of how we want to use the self study and other documents, how we come up with aspirations, and how we want to invite input.

Discussion of other information we would like to have. When should we invite speakers? Should these talks be open to everyone?

Next meeting: on Tuesday, April 23, from 2:30 to 3:30