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Abstract

This paper examines the concept of strategic planning as it can be applied to instructional programming in libraries.  It establishes that strategic planning is an important issue for libraries due to the rapid change in the information environment in the last several decades to anticipate and plan for new changes which inevitably will be coming to libraries in the future. A review of literature examines ideas about strategic planning from the library field.   The paper also reviews the entire concept of strategic planning broadly and lists some of the possible steps that can be followed to implement a strategic planning approach.  Finally, examples for how strategic planning can be applied to academic library instructional programs are provided.

Introduction

Change is constant in the world.  Societal, technological, and demographic shifts are constantly impacting the population of the broader community, which in turn immediately starts a constantly moving chain reaction, which results in changes to all aspects of society.  Educational institutions are not immune to this.  In fact, they often feel the impact of change long before other institutions are forced to deal with it.  As libraries are educational institutions, it is not surprising that libraries have been among the hardest hit in the education world in the amount of change that has occurred. 

The world in which libraries have operated has changed dramatically in the last several decades.  For centuries, the basic operational structure of libraries remained unchanged.  Librarians from different eras could have easily adjusted to working in libraries from different times.  However, the advent of the World Wide Web and the shift of information resources to electronic format has resulted in a revolution in the ways that libraries are operated and how patrons are taught about library resources.   This change in the information distribution has been compared (Lorenzen, 2003) to the alteration of the publishing industry by the invention of the Guttenberg Press. 

 Recent changes to libraries by the emergence of new information technologies have also forced alterations to library instructional programs.  Long gone are the days when teaching about locating information consisted of a lecture on the card catalog and a visit to the index tables.  How do you teach patrons to locate information when many of them use the Web as their only source of information?  Beyond just library instruction, how do you teach the information literacy skills that patrons will need to be able to successfully sort through the barrage of unmediated  material that is subject to minimal gate keeping? 

One fact is certain for libraries.  The changes that librarians are living through now are only the beginning.  We are still at the start of this information revolution and it may take a century (or more) for society to be able to fully deal with all the consequences that this new information environment has created.  More change is coming.  As such, librarians need to plan for it. 

Strategic planning is a route that many in business and education have used as a method to plan for the future.  This paper will look at the strategic planning process and show examples of how strategic planning can be used in academic library instructional planning.  It will start with a review of some of the literature that is relevant to the topic.

Literature Review

Strategic planning is a big topic in the library literature.  A search conducted in June 2004 in the database Library Literature returned 241 results.  While a comprehensive review of these results is not warranted for this paper, a highlight of some of the results is appropriate.

Robinson and Robinson (1994) wrote about how strategic planning could be used for budgeting decisions.  In particular, they saw this as a process to use that would allow administrators to make decisions for which library services to keep, cut back, or eliminate.  Their proposed strategic planning budgeting method was based on program budgeting and cost finding techniques.

 Many writers have noted that change is a constant for libraries.  Morgan (1999) used this to justify strategic planning.  He used this approach to look at planning for reference services, online searching, and electronic journals.   He wrote (p. 33), “Few, if any, people successfully predict the future with 100 percent accuracy but there are experts who have wider perspectives than the rest of us and, consequently, are more apt to see what lies ahead.  Librarians of the future will always be keeping one ear tuned to the experts and one ear tuned to their individual experiences.  Use what you hear to plan your future.  Your vision may not be the one everybody else sees, but at least it will provide a framework for future decision making, and will enable you and your library to evolve with our dynamic professional environment.”

Feinman (1999) provides an article which discussed the importance of strategic planning for libraries.  She laid out a 5-step plan for strategic planning.  She wrote (p. 19), “Strategic planning is necessary for libraries.  It is important to set clear direction, acknowledge all facets of competition, utilize all resources towards the main focus of the organization and understand what aspects of the competitive environment need greater attention.  The plan must continually be updated and evaluated.”

McClamroch et al (2001) wrote about the strategic planning approach used at the University of Indiana Libraries.  It was based on John Bryson’s model for non-profit organizations.   The article discussed the political nature of the process, the importance of quality leaders, and opportunities for organizational learning.

Dougherty (2001) discussed the need for libraries to engage in strategic planning rather than reacting to change. Highlights included long-range planning techniques, focusing on vision and the organizational environment, defining the planning process, including the role of the staff and prioritizing, and common pitfalls. It also featured the experiences at the Ann Arbor District Library with strategic planning.

Several articles have focused strategic planning on academic library instructional programming.  While planning has long been mentioned as a key component of library instruction and information literacy programs, few articles have been specifically tailored to deal with strategic planning.  However, several recent articles have addressed this issue.

Warren et al (2001) described a two-part segmentation technique that was applied to an instruction program for an academic library as part of the strategic planning process.  It examined a brainstorming technique that was used to create a list of existing and possible future audiences.  It then described a follow-up review session that evaluated the past years’ efforts.

Booth and Fabian (2002) reviewed the issue of using strategic planning to  advance curriculum goals relating to information literacy.  They explored organizational structures, curriculum guidelines and standards for higher education, and suggested strategies for positioning the American College and Research Libraries (ACRL) Information Literacy standards within institutional planning documents.  This also was suggested as a means to help integrate a campus-wide adoption of information literacy standards in the institutional curriculum.

Knight (2002) recounted how assessment of a library instruction program was incorporated into strategic planning at the University of the Pacific.  The project included the selection of the population, the development of learning objectives and assessment devices, and data collection and analysis.  She wrote (p. 19), “Having completed the first cycle of the ongoing process of learning assessment, the library is in a position to tailor the content and delivery of subsequent iterations.  Continuous improvement in library instruction can only be achieved if knowledge levels are measured at start and finish, and if the differences and means of achieving the differences are evaluated.  The analysis of learning outcomes is not an end in itself, but instead must become an input to the planning process that guides future library participation in learning.”

Strategic Planning

According to the Greenwood Dictionary of Education (2003, p. 338), strategic planning is defined as, “a process that people engage in to define an achievable and sustainable future for their institution or organization.”  While this definition appears deceptively simple, there are a variety of ways that this can be approached.  Models for strategic planning include Radford (1980) which is an analytical approach, Bryson (1995) which is geared towards non-profits, and Jacob (1995) which was designed for use with libraries.

One good model for strategic planning is by Kaufman, Herman, and Watters (1996).   They divide strategic planning into three stages which are scoping, planning, and implementations and continuous improvement.    Each of these stages is further divided into several smaller steps.

Despite the formulatic nature of this approach, it is important to remember flexibility in the process.  When writing about strategic planning in community colleges, Howell (2000, p. 3) wrote, “The strategic planning process must be constant and fluid, with the flexibility to accommodate change in internal and external forces.  Instead of focusing on a strategic plan, community colleges should emphasize strategic planning – a verb rather than a noun, an ongoing and people-centered activity rather than a finished product.”  The Kaufman, Herman, and Watters model is detailed as to an approach but an organization using it should still be able to alter the process as needed to best fit the situation at hand.

Scoping is divided into three steps in the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters model.  These include defining the current mission, identifying and selecting needs, and deriving the mission objective.   Again, each of these steps has a variety of issues that need to be considered. 

Defining the current mission actually entails looking to the future and defining a mission based on an ideal vision.  This mission has a clear set of conditions that are measurable and focus on results.  It should also project hope and energy.   Having a mission is a very important step.   Without a vision-oriented mission, the strategic plan would not be a clear map into the future.

The next stage in the scoping step is to assess needs.  The Kaufman, Herman, and Watters model divides this into nine steps.  These include deciding to use data to assess needs, identifying the level of the needs assessment, identifying partners, getting the partners to participate, accepting the needs assessment frame of reference, collecting data, link the needs into an assessment matrix, and prioritize the needs, and agree upon needs to be selected for inclusion on the strategic plan.

All of these steps in needs assessment are important.  However, finding partners and working with them is a key point.  These steps allow for feedback not only from education staff and students, but it allows key members of the community to provide feedback at the beginning in the process.  This makes for a more valuable strategic plan. 

Hart (1988) recommended using several small groups early in the planning process.  Each group could then discuss, combine, and rank their goals.  Each group could then report to the larger planning body so that a sense of cohesion and consensus could be achieved.

The final step in scoping is deriving the mission objective.  This consists of translating the current mission into measurable performance objectives.  The mission objective focuses on ends, not means.  It states four things which include who or what will demonstrate the performance, the performance to be demonstrated, the conditions under which the performance will be observed, and the criteria used to determine success.

The second stage of the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters strategic planning process is planning.  This is broken into three steps.  These are identifying SWOTs, deriving long and short-term missions, and deriving a strategic plan.

The first stage of planning is identifying SWOTs.  This stands for strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats.  There are several steps in this process including identifying those strengths that are available to implement strategies, identifying those weaknesses that should be corrected, identifying opportunities that are new or have not been adequately exploited, and developing tactics to counter threats.    This whole process usually takes the form of an analysis.

Feinman (1999, p. 20) wrote, “Your analysis should also examine the core values of your institution.  You must reflect on the traditional values in a dynamic and complex environment, assess current programs, adapt to emerging trends with the appropriate plan consistent with your vision, your mission, and your strengths as an institution, or decide not to adapt.”

Although Kaufman, Herman, and Watters do not reference it, environmental scans can also be used to help this process.  Wrote Dougherty (2002, p. 38), “This recognition led to the use of environmental scans.  The scan allows planners to take into account what is happening in the environments beyond the walls of an organization, e.g., within the community, on campus, and among groups of faculty, young adults, unserved, and so forth.”

The second step in the planning stage is deriving short and long-term missions.  It is important to note that Kaufman, Herman, and Watters place emphasis on two points here.  The first point is the idea of consensus.  Since multiple stakeholders were allowed to provide input to the process, it is easier to get everyone involved to agree to missions which are based on the input of the organization and the community members.  Second is the concept that the missions will be measured and everyone has agreed in advance what these measurements will be. 

Kaufman, Herman, and Watters wrote (p. 116), “Ultimately, each of these long and short-term missions should be (a) based upon the now shared ideal vision, needs, and existing mission, and (b) precisely identify where the educational organization is headed, and how everyone will know when (and if) they have arrived.  Because measurable criteria are used, progress toward each of the missions and ideal may be plotted and reported toward continuous improvement.  Appropriate responses, resources, and en route changes may be related.”

The final step in the planning stage is deriving a strategic plan.  Once an organization knows where it wants to go and can justify why it wants to get there, it can begin plotting the objectives required to get there.  Again, these objectives are always measurable. 

There are a variety of methods that can be used to generate the final strategic plan.   One person can pull all the material generated by the process or it can be written by committee.  Johnson (1989) described how the Phoenix public school system went about this step.  It had a 25 member planning team that formulated the objectives of the strategic plan.  This group included administrators, teachers, parents, support staff, and members of the community.  Oddly though, no students (who are the ultimate stakeholders in the process) were included.

The final stage in the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters strategic planning model is implementation and continuous improvement.  These are broken down into deriving tactical and operational plans, implementation, continuous improvement/formative evaluation, and determining effectiveness.  Of the three stages of this model, this appears to be the most straightforward. 

Tactical and operational planning looks to identify and select the best ways to accomplish objectives that were identified earlier in the strategic planning process.  The purpose is to find the best route to accomplish set objectives.  This is the final planning done before the implementation of the strategic plan is attempted.

Before the plan is implemented, it should be clearly communicated to the entire community.  Peterson (1989, p. 3) wrote, “A strategic plan should be fully discussed and publicized before it is implemented.  It is, as Hart points out, an opportunity to share the district’s educational vision with the entire community.”

Implementation is the actual process of carrying out the strategic plan.  (Ironically, many strategic plans never get to this stage because the strategic planning document sits in a drawer somewhere…)  If the strategic plan was well thought out and the appropriate resources and methods of accomplishment were selected, the plan should be accomplishable.  If there are flaws in the plan, they will probably be revealed at this stage.

Continuous improvement and formative evaluation are based on the idea that all objectives have measurable outcomes.  Since administrators (and everyone involved with the plan) know the desired outcome, evaluations can be done as necessary to see if the objectives are being reached.   The effectiveness of the plan can be determined and it can be continually improved as needed.

In concluding this brief overview of the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters plan, it is worth noting how important the strategic planning process can be to an institution.  Wrote Peterson (1989, p.  3), “A strategic plan, after all, is not simply a document.  It is a district’s road map to the future.  Its lines must always be true and clear.”

Connecting Strategic Planning to Academic Library Instructional Programming

The need for strategic planning is strong in academic libraries.  Planning library instructional programs is an area where this need is very evident.  Coordinating instruction for library and web resources pose many challenges when trying to project needs into the future.  For example, how should the instruction be offered?  Which staff should be involved?  How can the library instructional content be added to the broader institutional curriculum? 

Looking at the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters strategic planning model, it is clear that the various steps of the process can be applied when planning for the future of library instruction in academic libraries.   The rationale for including the various steps in the process for schools translates just as well when dealing with libraries.     What follows are a few examples of how this model can be applied in academic libraries in relation to instructional planning.

Scoping is a stage where librarians can bring in members of the community (library staff,  faculty, and students) and decide on a mission, assess needs, and decide on measurable performance measurements.   For example, many librarians may be dismayed to learn that faculty on campus have a very different vision of the role that librarians have in educating undergraduates than the librarians do.  While this may seem troublesome, it is actually potentially valuable.  Without faculty support, library instructional efforts will have limited impact on campus.  This stage of the strategic planning can be used to educate faculty on the issues and build a consensus that can  be used to have buy in for the library instruction program campus wide. 

One example could be the teaching of information literacy concepts taught by librarians.  When deciding on the current mission, the ideal vision could be that all students are information literate when they graduate.  On most campuses, an assessment of the undergraduate population would show that a large number of the students are information illiterate showing that there is a need that requires being addressed. 

Translating the above example into a mission objective would not be difficult for most librarians.  What ends would the librarians like to achieve?  Which performance should the students demonstrate?  How will the students demonstrate they have achieved it?  What criteria will be used to determine success?  One example could be that an aspect of the mission objective is to have students be able to recognize scholarly web resources and distinguish them from the majority of non-scholarly material online.   Lorenzen (2002) showed in his research that students are weak at assessing the validity of web resources but use them anyway because of ease of use. 

One way that would demonstrate that students have learned how to properly use resources would be if they were using appropriate sources in their papers.  One criterion for judging success could be an institutional sponsored citation analysis of a representative sample of undergraduate papers turned in after being exposed to education in this area.  In advance an agreed upon percentage of bad citations could be used to measure the success or failure of the effort.

The planning process should further advance the goal of information literacy education.  Looking at the SWOTs of library instructional programming, many facts could be ascertained.  A strength of the area could be the expertise and willingness of the librarians to share their expertise on information literacy with students and faculty.  A weakness could be that the librarians are poorly represented or poorly received in the campus curricular planning process.  An opportunity could be to use the library’s representative on the campus curriculum committee to push an information literacy initiative.   A threat could be student’s unwillingness to learn about scholarly resources because they are happy with the results that the search engines give them and the faculty accepts the resulting papers that are turned in.

After achieving consensus within the strategic planning body, and deciding how the success of the strategic plan will be measured to derive short and long term missions, a strategic plan can be generated.   How will the library get to the desired goal?  Objectives can be plotted at this point to get to the desired point.  In the case of the goal to make all graduating students information literate, perhaps an objective could be to make mandatory a credit-bearing course on information literacy taught by librarians and other interested faculty on campus.  This is also a measurable objective (is the course being offered?).

Librarians can also participate in tactical and operational planning to find the best ways to accomplish the objectives set earlier.  In the example of the information literacy goal, resources could be identified and allocated to bring a credit-bearing information literacy course into reality.  Perhaps it is as simple as getting a high-ranking university official to decree that such a course is needed.  Or it may be that the library needs to allocate resources to make a hard push through the campus governance structure.

If the library cares enough to make a strategic plan for instructional services, it should care enough to actually implement the plan.  There are many stories of strategic planning processes at various libraries that ended with a neatly printed plan being distributed and then promptly filed in multiple offices never to be seen again.   In the example being used, efforts should be extended to create, offer, and then teach the information literacy course to undergraduates.

There will always be a need for libraries to monitor their implementation efforts.   Are the objectives being achieved?  Are there improvements that can be made to better the process?  For the information literacy goal, is the course being effective in teaching the desired outcomes?  If not, can improvements be made in the curriculum to improve the learning of the students?

While the examples above did not cover every aspect of the Kaufman, Herman, and Watters strategic planning model, they clearly show that this model of strategic planning is useable by academic libraries when creating strategic plans for instructional programs.  Strategic planning is hard work.  However, the results of a well-done effort are certainly worth it if the desired outcomes are achieved.

Conclusion

Strategic planning is an important endeavor that academic libraries should pursue when planning for the future.  This is particularly true in planning for instructional programs.  A literature review shows that many library scholars have written about both strategic planning in general and strategic planning as it can be applied to instructional programs in libraries.   There are many different models of strategic planning that can be used.  One of these (Kaufman, Herman, and Watters) is well suited to use by libraries.  These modes of strategic planning are multifaceted and have a large number of steps needed to successfully complete the planning process.  However, as examples show, the model can easily be translated for use when planning for the future of library instructional programs. 

References

Booth, A., & Fabian, C. A. (2002),  Collaborating to advance curriculum-based information literacy initiatives.  Journal of library administration, 36 (1/2), 123-142.

Collins, J. W. & O’Brien, P. N. (Eds.). (2003).  The Greenwood dictionary of education.  Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.

Dougherty, R. M. (2002).  Planning for a new library future.  Library journal, 127(9), 38-41.

Feinman, V. J. (1999).  Five steps towards planning today for tomorrow’s needs.  Computers in libraries, 19(1), 18-21.

Hart, T. E. (1988).  Long-range planning: School districts prepare for the future. Eugene, OR: Oregon School Study Council. . (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED292207.)

Herman, J. J (1988).  Map the trip to your district’s future.  School administrator, 45(9), 16, 18, 23.

Howell, E. (2000).  Strategic planning for a new century: Process over product. Los Angeles, CA: ERIC Clearinghouse for Community Colleges. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED447842.)

Jacobs, M. E. L. (1990).  Strategic planning: A How-to-do It Manual for librarians.  Chicago: IL, Neal-Schuman.

Johnson, J. K. (1989).  Steer a straight course with strategic planning.  American school board journal, 176(4), 44.

Kaufman, R, Herman, J., & Watter, K. (1996).  Educational planning: Strategic, tactical, and operational.  Lanham: Maryland, The Scarecrow Press.

Knight, L. A. (2002).  The role of assessment in library user education.  Reference services review, 30(1), 15-24.

Lorenzen, M.  (2002).  The land of confusion? High school students and their use of the web for research.  Research strategies, 18(2), 151-163. 

Lorenzen, M. (2003). Teaching and learning on the Web. Academic Exchange Quarterly, 7(1), 3.

McClamroch, J., Bryd, J. J., & Sowell, S. L. (2001).  Strategic planning: Politics, leadership, and learning.  Journal of academic librarianship, 27(5), 372-378.

Morgan, E. L. (1999).  Springboards for strategic planning.  Computers in libraries, 19(1), 32, 33.

Peterson, D. (1989).  Strategic planning.  Eugene, OR: ERIC Clearinghouse on Educational Management. . (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED312774.)

Radford, K. J. (1980). Strategic planning: An Analytical approach.  Reston: VA, Reston Publishing Company. 

Robinson, M. R., & Robinson, S. (1994).  Strategic planning and program budgeting for libraries.  Library trends, 42(3), 420-427.

Warren, R., Hayes, S., & Gunter, D. (2001). Segmentation techniques for expanding a library instruction market: Evaluation and brainstorming.  Research strategies, 18(3), 171-180.