Strategic Planning for Public Libraries


Book Description

Strategic Planning for Public Libraries is a complete planning toolkit. Each purchase comes with a downloadable supplemental folder full of reusable templates, worksheets, as well as real-life examples from other libraries to help guide the reader through the planning process. This book provides a framework that any library, whether it serves urban, suburban, or rural communities, can use as a basis for its strategic planning.




Strategic Planning for Results


Book Description

The PLA Results Series has long served to help public librarians envision, evaluate, and respond to community needs with distinctive programs and services. Building from this proven model, Strategic Planning for Results is the fully revised version of Planning for Results, the foundational book in this groundbreaking series. Sandra Nelson, senior editor of the Results Series, focuses on the essential steps to draft a results-driven, strategic planning process that libraries can complete over the course of four months, regardless of organizational structure or size. Reflecting on the current planning environment for public libraries, Nelson makes the case for strategic rather than long-term planning and includes a wealth of information about understanding and managing the change process to help staff Assess the change-readiness of the library and preparing staff to implement forthcoming changes Simplify data collection and decision-making processes through the use of 14 reproducible workforms Identify service priority options and reach agreement as a group Successfully present and communicate within their library Including the newly revised and adopted Public Library Service Responses, along with case studies, workforms, and tool kits, Strategic Planning for Results offers librarians a wealth of ideas to effectively meet changing community needs.




Strategic Planning and Management for Library Managers


Book Description

Libraries enter into strategic planning by a variety of routes, from dynamic technology and rising costs to budget cuts and pressure for change. In this book, Joe Matthews guides library managers towards a greater understanding of the role and attendant responsibilities of strategic planning. Academic, public, and special librarians alike will benefit from Matthews' cogent explanations, real-life examples, and time-tested recommendations. In the process, Matthews addresses such intrinsic questions as: Why is it important that I add strategic thinking to my managerial arsenal? How will strategic planning benefit my library, and is there more than one way to go about it? What is the best way of monitoring and updating our strategic plan for maximum effect? In each case, he debunks false impressions, attends to the goal of providing good service, and identifies at least one new way to communicate the library's strategic importance in the lives of its customers. Academic, public, and special librarians alike will benefit from Matthews' cogent explanations, real-life examples, and time-tested recommendations.




Strategic Planning for Academic Libraries


Book Description

Written by a team of authors with decades of library administration experience between them, this powerful resource enables academic libraries to produce plans that will offer directional guidance to employees while also demonstrating the library's power to meet institutional goals.




Developing Strategic Marketing Plans that Really Work


Book Description

Public libraries are increasingly aware of the need for good marketing. Underlying this is a need for competence in marketing planning. Many government and other reports stress the need to get public libraries back into the lives of their users and potential users and this requires significant marketing effort. However, it quickly becomes apparent to public librarians that marketing is far more than simply creating a set of leaflets for their marketing communications. What they need is a simple, practical guide to the whole marketing planning process from goals to implementation of marketing strategies and communications. And along the way they need to troubleshoot the barriers that such activities meet. This highly practical and down-to-earth book, with free downloadable templates and forms on the web, will de-mystify the marketing planning process and set it in the context of modern public library services. Through a series of easy to implement process steps and ideas the reader will see not just what is possible but what is likely to work quickly, and deliver real impact on performance indicators, in a public library context. The book is structured as follows: strategic marketing planning for public libraries: an introduction ambition as the basis for marketing planning making sense of the market for your public library services creating segment-specific value propositions for users and non-users priorities: making sound choices clear objectives and winning strategies attention-grabbing marketing communications implementation and quick progress. Readership: The text is fully international in scope and is written for all those practitioners who recognize the importance of marketing in shaping and positively influencing the direction of public library services.




Blueprint for Your Library Marketing Plan


Book Description

In these challenging times, libraries face fierce competition for customers and funding. Creating and implementing a marketing plan can help libraries make a compelling case and address both issues—attracting funding and customers by focusing on specific needs. But where and how do you start?




Managing the Successful School Library


Book Description

More than just a compendium of management theories, this book provides much food for thought that will help readers gain important insights into their own roles as school library managers and leaders.




Fundamentals of Planning and Assessment for Libraries


Book Description

The concepts of planning and assessment are intrinsically linked—and understanding them is essential for raising the library’s profile and strengthening its position among stakeholders and the community. Even if you're an LIS student or are new to the profession, or if planning or assessment are not your primary areas of responsibility, you still have a role to play in the success of organizational efforts. Fleming-May has more than a decade of experience in planning and assessment initiatives and instruction, and Mays was her institution’s first assessment librarian; their primer draws from theory, research, and their first-hand observations to illuminate such topics as characteristics of bad planning strategy that can help to illustrate a better approach; reasons why using economic models, like ROI, fall short; how to mix the three types of planning; guidelines to ensure that assessment is meaningful and actionable; tips for creating effective surveys; emphasizing users’ needs with a critical assessment framework; data analysis for surveys, interviews, focus groups, and observation; four questions to ask about audience level before you develop a report; a sample 3-year assessment plan that can be customized; and seven steps for developing a culture of ongoing assessment.




Public Libraries and Their Communities


Book Description

Public Libraries and Their Communities: An Introduction provide an overview of public librarianship today. It covers library organization, policy development, staffing, fiscal organization including funding sources and budgets, the legal framework, relationships with local and state governments, advocacy, services and service development for different age groups and for different groups of users, development of programming and outreach, collection development, promotion and marketing, and current issues and trends. In addition to context and concepts, the book uses many examples from both large and small public libraries to bring principles to life. Examples include real library policies, case studies, strategic planning, organization charts and library budgets. Many think that public libraries are not complicated to run.This book aims to show that public libraries are very complicated and require much skill on the part of the director, staff, and Board of Trustees to meet the needs of their local users.Advocacy and marketing have become important parts of the work of public libraries. Funding is always challenging so public libraries must constantly be making the local government and its citizens aware of the public library – its programs, collections, and services. This book's focus is on how public libraries reach beyond the walls of their buildings and touch the lives of their citizens.Meeting community interests and needs is essential for 21st century public libraries. For students the book offers discussion questions at the end of each chapter. These questions also provide discussion starters for public library staff development.




Small Public Library Management


Book Description

Finally, here’s a handbook that includes everything administrators need to keep a handle on library operations, freeing them up to streamline and improve how the organization functions.