1. Top 7 Strategic Plan Goals for Public
Libraries
Stephen Abram, MLS
Education Institute Webinar
Feb. 28, 2013
2. Every Day in every way libraries are
throwing pebbles
3. It’s simple really, shift happens, gedoverit
• Users & Communities will continue to be diverse in the extreme
• Expectations around timeliness will increase
• We will have a foot in both camps for many, many years to come: digital
and physical
• Content will (is already) be dominated by non-text (gamification, 3D,
visual, music, video, audio, etc.)
• Search will explode with options and one-step, one box search is for
dummies
• The single purpose anchored device is dead as a target environment
• Devices will focus on social, collaboration, sharing, multimedia, creation
and successful library strategies will align with that
• Librarians will need to focus primarily on professional service(s) and
strategic alignment (reduced roles in organizing knowledge and
step&fetchit politeness) . . . Service Professionals NOT Servants
• E-Learning, collections and metadata will go to the cloud massively
4. Library Megatrends
It doesn’t take a genius to see librarian
skills and competencies applied to the
trends and issues in library
communities in very strategic ways.
5. Public Libraries
• Recommendations (Bibliocommons, LibraryThing
for Libraries / Book Psychic)
• Community Glue
• Economic Impact and VALUE studies
• Programs on steroids aligned with collections and
space
• Bi-directional Partnerships
• Education and Learning – REALLY committing to
learning and credits / diplomas / certificates
• A volatile supplier space
• Renewed advocacy moves to Influencing and selling
6. Consortia
• Consortia
• CRKN, OCUL, TAL, CULC, Readers First, etc.
• Dealing with the small town mindset
• OCLC Linked Data, RDA and global metadata strategies
• DPLA
• Library Renewal
• EveryLibrary Advocacy PAC
• 3M e-books (CALIFA / Douglas County initiatives)
• Dark literature, orphan works, etc.
• Cloud initiatives
12. Libraries core skill is not
delivering information
Libraries improve the
quality of the question
and the user experience
Libraries are about learning
and building communities
17. What are the goals?
• What are your goals?
• What are their goals?
• Is there a difference?
18.
19. Books, eBooks Serve
Magazines Answer
Websites Engage
Buildings, Branches Link
Rooms Entertain
Desks Tell a story
Programs Do
Nouns can be warehoused Action verbs imply dynamism
and ‘cut’ and impact
21. A Verb . . . an Experience, enlivened for an audience
22. A Noun . . . A foundation but not sufficient with professional animation
23. Focus on the REAL Issues
Not BOOKS! The experience
Retail Sales Down? NO
Titles Down? NO
Circulation Down? NO
Reading Down? NO
Teen Reading Down? NO
29. Up Your Game
• Know your local community demographics
• Focus on needs assessment and social assessments
• Prioritize: Love all, Serve all, Save the World means nothing
gets done
• Priorities are SMART: Specific, Measurable, Attainable,
Relevant, & Time bound
• Look for partnerships that add value
30. Amazon
Chapters/Indigo
Barnes & Noble
BN BookBrowser
Borders
Suggestica
Inside a Dog (teens)
MySpace Books
Books We Like
OCLC's FictionFinder
All Consuming
LibraryThing
Next Favorite
StoryCode
Rating Zone
Hypatia and AlexLit
WhichBook.net
AllReaders.com
Reader's Robot
gnooks
31. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – every collection must be justified by
programs
• Force strategic investment budgeting
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Don’t go it alone. Focus on large scale sustainable programs
• Connect to the longer process not just events
• Virtual and in-person
• In the Library and reaching out with partners
32. What are the real issues?
• Craft versus Industrial Strength
• Personal service only when there’s impact
• Pilot, Project, Initiative versus Portfolio Strategy
• Hand-knitted prototypes versus Production
• e.g. Information Literacy initiatives
• Discovery versus Search versus Deep Search
• eLearning units and program dissemination
• Citation and information ethics
• Content and repository archipelagos
• Strategic Analytics
• Value & Impact Measures
• Behaviours, Satisfaction
• Economic and strategic alignment
33. Up Your Game
• Align with Collections – But add virtual experiences
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Ensure the program delivery person is embedded including
librarians
• What are your top 20 question domains? Start there.
• Don’t go it alone. Build scalability and sustainability.
• Look for replicability – every neighbourhood
34. The new
bibliography and
collection
development
Ask Us, KNOWLEDGE
PORTALS
KNOWLEDGE,
LEARNING,
INFORMATION &
RESEARCH
COMMONS
35. Up Your Game
• Start offering diplomas and certificates
• Look for partnerships that add value
• Offer real educational opportunities not just adjacencies
• What does your community need for economic advantage?
• What courses to you offer or recommend? (TED, Khan
Academy, etc.)
36. Up Your Game
• Understand the new Common Curriculum (esp. 6-8 and 9-12)
• Understand Pedagogy in the context of student experiences
and educational goals
• Understand human development from early years through
teens
• Connect across developmental stages, link
• Consider partnerships to put teachers in the library
• Consider coaches and tutoring partnerships
37. Up Your Game
• The strong ‘library’ brand – adding dimension
• Personal branding – Who are your stars? Promote them.
• Program branding
• Take risks for attention (AIDA)
• Embed your brand beyond the library walls and virtually
38. Up Your Game
• Grow collections investments in strategic areas (for example
economic impact, jobs, early years, hobbies, political alignment,
homework, …)
• Develop hybrid strategies that are consistent for digital and
print and programs
• Be obsessive about recommendations and advice
• Integrate virtual and physical - hybridize
39. Up Your Game
• Dog, Star, Cow, Problem Child/?
• Reduce investment in successes
• Increase investment
• Look at TCO
• Look at all costs incurred and not just hard costs
• Review opportunity costs in soft costs
