Title
Oregon City Library Draft Strategic Plan 2019-2024
Body
RECOMMENDED ACTION (Motion):
Review and discuss the draft strategic plan with the hope of adopting it at the regular City Commission meeting on February 6, 2019.
BACKGROUND:
Once the library building was constructed, the RFID (radio frequency identification) project was completed, and new processes somewhat stabilized, it was time to review the 2013-2018 strategic plan, to assess our progress with goals, and look towards the future with the new building. We needed to think about those things that we had not been able to do for years because of our physical limitations as well as consider what could be accomplished now that the building was complete, provided an improved site for services, and was no longer the main focus of our efforts and resources. Additionally we needed to talk to our community and find out what they wanted. It was time for a new strategic plan.
We solicited help in the strategic planning process from the State Library of Oregon. It has a consultant who helps libraries with the organization of the process and facilitation of the multiple meetings required to make the process successful. Starting in September, 2017, (please note: this was mentioned as a goal in the 2018 City Commission Retreat), we followed the steps outlined in Strategic Planning for Results by Sandra Nelson for the Public Library Association (American Library Association, 2008), which is the manual selected by the State Library of Oregon to guide these processes. Over the course of the next 12 months, we
• asked library patrons what was important to them about Oregon City through a series of in-library and online opportunities;
• held facilitated staff meetings which completely focused on strategic planning and the future of the library;
• we gathered a group of people who represented library stakeholder groups in two meetings, each lasting several hours, to discuss the future role of the library in the community;
• after all of those meetings, the findings and the ensuing draft plan were reviewed with staff and the Library Board several times.
The first several drafts of the plan were mostly text and rather difficult to read and make sense of. After viewing the Youth Services Librarian’s summer reading report, which heavily relied on graphics to convey information, we decided that graphics would make the plan much more accessible. She revised the report; the new version received huge support from the Library Board, and that is the version attached to this report.
In addition to the traditional vision, mission, and core values, this process asked stakeholders to identify something called Service Responses. These are areas of focus, or goal clusters, which are provided and named by the manual. Stakeholders and staff were asked to identify their top areas of focus by placing any/all of 10 post-it notes on 18 focuses placed around the room. These votes were collated to identify consensus priorities. We eventually starting calling these Strategic Focuses, to provide more meaning to the general public.
Each group contributed to the selection of strategic focuses and to a specific portion of the Vision (staff), Mission (stakeholders), Core Values and Guiding Principles (Library Board), all listed in the attached strategic plan.
What do you need to know?
-our main strategic areas of focus are below listed in bold with sub-areas listed next:
• Create Young Readers: explore opportunities for outreach and partnerships; reach underprivileged, at-risk youth; ensure young readers and their caregivers have easy access to materials; and increase number of books owned by children under 5 in the OCPL service area.
• Know your Community: residents will have a central source for information about the wide variety of programs, services, and activities provided by community agencies and organizations; learn more about specific make up and needs of our community including technology needs; be a bigger part of the Oregon City community; and meet people where they are.
• Stimulate Imagination: continue to grow the collection, keeping it current, topical, attractive, and accessible; offer resources in multiple and varied formats; and offer programs which inspire and educate.
• Visit a comfortable place: while maintaining the existing facility, explore ways to expand our services to more parts of our service areas; and improve library services to community members with alternate needs.
• Fortify Infrastructure: ensure that all organizational documentation is created and updated at appropriate intervals; ensure staff is well-trained and up-to-date in current best practices in all areas in order to meeting community library needs; ensure that all support groups are properly trained and in alignment with library goals; increase staffing in areas of most need: support youth and adult outreach, volunteer coordination, etc.
Each sub-area has multiple activities designed to help achieve our goals.
Why do you need to know this?
-you need to know what is going on at the library and;
- that in addition to covering basic library functions, we will be focusing attention on activities supporting these areas and that our resources will be allocated appropriately;
-you need to know that our goals may seem lofty, but these services are what libraries everywhere offer and what our constituents expect;
-you need to know that in order to deliver on some of these goals, we will need more staff; this will continue to be an ongoing resource allocation discussion during the current and future budget processes.
What am I asking of the Commission?
-please provide any feedback now or in the future; please approve the resolution to adopt this plan at the first City Commission meeting in February.