Perkins Library System Planning Process

Deborah Jakubs

Our own strategic plan, Critical Choices, covering the period 2000-2005, was developed in response to the University’s planning efforts. By clearly reflecting university priorities, our plan was enriched and well regarded, and has remained relevant over the past five years. The four major themes of Critical Choices have served as an excellent blueprint for the library’s activities as well as guiding us in identifying priorities for the Perkins Library system during this period. It is now time to initiate a new planning process and to appoint a new strategic planning group to prepare a plan for the period 2006-2010.

In appointing the new Library Planning Committee, the Executive Group seeks both to build upon the Library’s previous planning efforts and to respond to the University’s broader plans and priorities.

The Library Planning Committee is charged to:

• Review the school and university planning documents as they become available;
• Review Critical Choices and determine progress made toward the goals identified there, as well as gaps and exclusions;
• Determine and assess the internal and external environmental factors that affect all research libraries at present, and especially Duke’s, identifying strengths, challenges and opportunities;
• Design a planning process for the Library that takes full advantage of the knowledge and insights of the entire Library staff as well as the experiences and needs of Duke faculty, students, and administrators;
• Identify areas in which the relationship of the Perkins system to other campus libraries is especially important to planning, and where synergies may be found, to help orient the development of a campus-wide plan for library services;
• Develop a plan that establishes goals for the Library for the next five years, describes strategies, and identifies resources needed to accomplish these goals;
• Recommend procedures for evaluating the Library’s progress toward its goals.
  

The Library Planning Committee cannot accomplish these goals by itself. It will be vital to the planning process to establish subgroups that will focus their efforts on particular themes or functions. One of the first steps of the Committee will be to develop a list of themes and appoint these topical working groups. A very significant number of library staff have indicated that they would like to play an active role in the planning process; they will be invited, along with others, to serve on the working groups. I am very encouraged by the strong demonstration of interest in this process.

The Planning Committee should aim to complete a draft of its plan by the end of June 2006. The schedule may be altered depending on coordination with the school and University planning process and the availability of documents related to that process.

I thank all the members of the Library Planning Committee for their willingness to take on this responsibility, and I extend my gratitude as well to the other members of the library staff who will be contributing through the working groups. The challenge before us is large, but the benefits are innumerable. The process itself, which will bring the library staff together across departmental lines to work toward a common goal, will be extremely valuable. Planning for the future of our library collections, services, organization, and integration with the University is of the utmost importance at this particular time.

I look forward to working closely with the library staff to create a strategic plan that expresses our aspirations, calls on our essential creativity, and inspires us to the next phase of our collective work at Duke University.