On 9/26 the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met for its weekly meeting. The following topics were discussed:
The team go a quick update on the progress of the strategic plan draft the Leadership team and DJA are putting together. They’ve had one working meeting, with another to follow next week and we are told that work continues apace.
Jon Shaw and Mary Ellen Burd mentioned that they have begun to develop prospective draft mission vision and values statements which will be shared with SPSC next week for feedback, before they are sent on to Constantia and the Leadership team.
On 9/6 the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met for its weekly meeting, with DeEtta Jones joining by phone. The following topics were discussed:
Leadership Team’s involvement in writing the plan has accelerated. Between now and September 27, the Leadership Team will work directly with DeEtta Jones and Associates to draft the plan. SPSC will hand off the priorities to DJA next week - DJA and the Leadership team will refine them and use them as a foundation as they write the strategic plan.
SPSC will work with the Leadership team next week to facilitate this transition and provide context for the high-level concepts and language choices we’ve highlighted and recommended. In addition we will provide the Leadership Team with a succinct summary of divisional goals across the Libraries. And summaries of staff input from the Values Sessions and the Community Cafes.
Looking ahead, the Strategic Planning Steering Committee will continue to play an advisory role in the strategic planning process and will continue to meet and operate in this capacity to ensure a smooth transition to the plan’s implementation phase in January 2020. As such, we are still available to field questions and comments from staff.
Over the course of two sessions on 8/23 and 8/27, members of SPSC and the Penn Libraries leadership team met to conduct a Change Agenda exercise. The purpose of developing a Change Agenda is for the people developing the strategic plan to identify and align key areas from information gathering that resonate, and then to discuss and come to a consensus on where the organization are in these areas and where it should go. This process results in the first draft of an organization’s strategic priorities.
Process: The exercise began with the consideration of 9 of the most common themes that emerged during SPSC’s internal and external information gathering phase. A period of discussion among the group led to some paring of themes and combining of similar themes, leaving the group with 6 key themes to focus on as the next part of the exercise commenced.
This next part of the exercised involved each individual crafting “to” and “from” statements (i.e., the Libraries’ current state and the desired future state) on post its for each of the themes and then combining them on large-format post its around the room. The group was given time to read the aggregated statements and digest them and then discussed their reactions to the aggregated to and from statements. Through this discussion a consensus was reached on where the Libraries currently stand and where they should go, relative to these 6 topics.
Smaller groups were then formed to discuss how the consensus around these areas might coalesce into broader strategic priorities and what those priorities might be. The group then came back together to compare potential strategic priorities and develop a set that accurately reflected the input of the small groups. The group left the second day with a very rough set of four priorities that were further refined in a group document and resulted in the draft strategic priorities below:
Draft Strategic Priorities:
Lead and partner in creating, acquiring, providing access to, and preserving the cultural and scholarly record for a diverse global audience.
Examples:
Engage students, researchers, and communities to transform research and teaching for the future of humanity.
Examples:
Invest in organizational growth and empowerment.
Examples:
Empower users with dynamic services that allow them to engage with and contribute to a world of knowledge.
Examples:
On 8/15 the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met with Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Constantia Constantinou for an update and to discuss next steps.
The meeting focused on a prospective relative timeline of events and deliverables, presented by SPSC for further discussion. These events and deliverables include:
Staff will be notified of specific dates and times for staff events. A summary of the Change Agenda retreat will be posted to the SPSC Libguide site.
During late August and into September, Constantia will begin the process of making external constituencies, such as the Provost’s Office, the Council of Deans, and the Board of Overseers aware of our preliminary strategic directions, and provide background on the planning process that led to their creation. A draft of the strategic plan will then be developed and written by SPSC, to be presented to Constantia for her input and finalization. It will be based on our external research as well as the comprehensive and valuable input by all levels of Library staff and external stakeholders, and will be developed with the continuing partnership of DeEtta Jones and Associates.
Once the Strategic Plan has been completed and finalized, we anticipate it will be presented to staff in late October, and to the Board of Overseers prior to their next meeting in November. The document will be publically available and easily discoverable to anyone who wishes to read it.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 8/9 and the following topics were discussed:
Timeline and Deliverable Discussion with DeEtta Jones: DeEtta Jones joined SPSC for the first portion of the meeting to work with the group to update our timetable and slate of events and deliverables. Based on our ongoing communication with Penn Libraries leadership team we made a few adjustments. We discussed the structure and timing of the upcoming Community Cafes, the SPSC/Libraries’ Leadership Change Agenda meetings, and the timing for the development and submission of the strategic plan draft to Constantia
The Change Agenda meetings will happen first. Our draft strategic priorities will be developed in these meetings. At the Community Cafes the following week, we will discuss the draft priorities with the Libraries staff and, in particular, how the priorities resonate with people personally - how they see themselves and their work reflected in the priorities. At this time Constantia will begin discussing our process and the draft priorities with University stakeholders and the Board of Overseers. The plan development will continue in earnest during September and October, with an anticipated final release in late October.
Staff Questions: The group reviewed questions that have come in from staff regarding the strategic planning process. A couple were out of the scope of SPSC’s charge and responses will be provided directly to those who posed the questions. The responses to the others will be posted to the FAQ section of the SPSC Libguide site
Deep - Dive - Workforce & Culture: The deep dive around Workforce and culture circled around four primary topics. The first two were effectively building organizational capacity and how to support growth of individual staff members. Many of our peer institutions have extensive and specific infrastructure in place to ensure that individuals are able to continually grow and can transform that individual growth into a broad and holistic raising of organizational IQ and potential. Organizations with this type of mindset and infrastructure are able to react quickly, efficiently, adeptly and creatively when faced with new challenges and opportunities. More importantly, they are able to proactively identify and take action on opportunities and risks further out on the horizon. We learned about models with clear and consistent paths to advancement, widely available training and professional development opportunities and programs focused on mentorship and collaboration within the Library.
Another common theme was the way in which equity diversity and inclusion (EDI) benefit and increase organizational capacity. By increasing the variety of experiences and perspectives within an organization, EDI allows an organization to grow in new ways and react in better, more innovative ways to the challenges and opportunities that arise externally. EDI provides the greatest benefit when it is achieved at all levels of an organization, including at the highest levels of leadership. The power and benefit of EDI grow with amplification – the peer institutions that seemed to really excel in this area were very clear about communicating their efforts. There was no risk of anyone within the library or in the larger public not being informed of the efforts happening in this area.
The fourth common theme, which the above three are essential to, is the building of trust and community within an organization. In addition to EDI and an infrastructure that enables personal (and thus organizational) growth, transparency and consistency of communication throughout an organization is key. The most impressive peer institutions explained in a very thorough, easily navigable and public (usually web-based) way, the “who” and “how” of the way things get done at the library. Committee functions and compositions are readily and clearly available, as are staff development resources and the strategic plans that undergird it all.
Deep Dive - User Experience: A common fallacy is that user experience at liberties is solely the province of digital services – this is not true. We found that users don’t differentiate between digital and physical services – they want a suite of seamless services that are effective and intuitive. The organizations that build the most successful user experience are those that approach user experience initiatives in a structured and systemic way and are steadily resourced (in both staff and funding) toward improving the user experience. Organizations who approach user experience in an ad-hoc manner tend to struggle a bit more with it.
There are challenges to building a successful user experience. Organizations’ control and latitude in improving the user experience are often constrained by vendors within particular services. As mentioned above, it does require an investment of both human and financial resources. And perhaps the biggest hurdle to effective user experience is getting to know the users, particularly when the users’ needs and expectations are continually changing and evolving and were often highly varied to begin with.
We discussed a couple of places that seem to be approaching user experience in a novel or particularly effective way. MIT has a dedicated user experience department, but more interestingly they host what they call “Experiments at the MIT Libraries”. Staff can suggest an experiment to improve the user experience – it will then be piloted and either adopted or ended. MIT has a website that explains all the experiments and the rationale behind adopting them or not. Blue Cadet, a Philadelphia design firm takes user experience as a starting point and then bifurcates its process into an early “imagination” phase, which focuses on creativity and intuition, followed by a “research” phase, which is based in testing and quantifiable evidence.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 08/02/2019. The following topics were discussed:
Recognition of Libraries groups re: deep dive topics. In response to staff feedback, the group discussed noting in the Monday emails, groups within the Penn Libraries who were part of deep dive research. This will prevent the impression that their work and contributions were not considered.
Union Open House Debrief: The group discussed the Union-exclusive open house that was held on 8/1. It was very well attended and staff was highly engaged. While a number of important, thought-provoking points were raised, many of the issues raised fell outside the scope of SPSC’s charge to deliver a draft strategic plan to the Library Director and beyond our abilities to address. With that being said, the group has conveyed the issues raised (via SPSC member Jon Shaw, who led the open house) to leadership for further consideration.
GOLD Group: SPSC discussed feedback from the GOLD group regarding questions they had about the focus groups DJA conducted with university stakeholders, particularly how the groups came together and whether the focus groups themselves were representative of the University’s diverse population, as well as concern over the lack of mention of equity, diversity and inclusion from focus group participants. SPSC cast a wide net when inviting participants – the combination of a compressed time frame and summer vacations impacted the response rate but we don’t know specifically that there was an effect on the diversity of the participants. SPSC will follow up on these questions.
On 7/31 the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met with Vice Provost and Director of Libraries Constantia Constantinou. A follow-up meeting was held on 8/2 to continue the conversation. Below are the key discussion topics from the two sessions.
Athenaeum 21 Report: The Penn Libraries comprehensive strategic planning process also involves a deep technology review for all IT operations and digital scholarship. Athenaeum 21 was contracted in order to conduct report that supports the Penn Libraries’ goal of becoming a world leader in digital collections and scholarship. A21 work is to collect and analyze the staff’s local and disciplinary knowledge to inform a set of recommendations for leading Penn Libraries confidently into a new era of digital success. The report is currently wrapping up and Constantia has been in contact with them regarding the first draft of their findings. The draft has been shared with The Provost’s office and the University’s Senior Leadership of Vice Presidents and Vice Provosts. The next step will be a review by the Libraries’ leadership team to assess how it relates to their respective divisions, and DeEtta Jones and Associates, to weigh in on how it would be most useful to our strategic planning process. The release of the final report to staff and the public is anticipated to be in September.
Although SPSC has not yet seen the Athenaeum 21 report, general discussion of it segued into forward thinking in general and associated concerns from staff. Staff have relayed concerns to SPSC that as the Libraries and its work continue to evolve, that staff will not be provided a path and the opportunity to obtain the necessary skills to be successful in the future state of the Penn Libraries. All agreed that while it’s important to acknowledge that our goals and work may evolve, it should not be at the expense of the people who are here, and staff will be given the tools/skills and opportunities to thrive in an evolving workplace. Professional development will need to be a central piece of this effort.
Timing/Roadmap: Further roadmapping was discussed. The following general timelines have been established:
SPSC will be developing a more granular 12-week workplan that will take us through the end of the strategic planning cycle, at which point the implementation phase of the plan will begin.
Preliminary Strategic Priorities Discussion: Since there are a few more inputs left in the strategic planning process (deep dive discussions, Community Cafes and AUL horizon reports), SPSC was reluctant to definitively claim what any emerging strategic priorities might be at this point. Instead, Constantia and the group did a thought exercise based on what the group has learned so far, but not necessarily tied to any prospective strategic priorities. The catalyst of the exercise were a few elemental questions:
There was a broad consensus that what’s important to Penn Libraries is people – not just our patrons , but ourselves as well. We value dignity, respect, open discourse and the diversity that strengthens and enriches us. We build and serve communities both within and outside our walls – sometimes far outside. We become more successful by strengthening these communities as we share our knowledge and absorb the knowledge of our partners, and by acting as an active collaborator and bridge-builder. And when we become more successful we achieve our purpose - improving humanity through our work.
To reiterate, this exercise was not intended to result in our strategic priorities, but rather to inform our mindset as we do the work of developing them over the next few weeks.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 07/26. The following topics were discussed:
Scheduling/Events: The team spent a good portion of the meeting mapping out the schedule of events and meetings that will accompany this next phase of our strategic planning process. As the dates and times for these events are confirmed, we will alert staff bot in the weekly Monday emails and ahead of individual events.
Division goals ingestion: the group discussed what would be the best way to ensure that the goals each division compiled prior to the strategic planning kickoff. In addition to analyzing all of the division goals to look for common themes (similar to what we did for the environmental scan, the group will be meeting with each division leader over the next two weeks to discuss their division’s goals and what’s on the horizon.
Agenda prep for Meeting with Constantia Constantinou: The group developed a potential agenda for next week’s update meeting with Constantia. Following the meeting, a full summary will be posted.
Deep Dive, Privacy: The team had its first group discussion around a deep dive topic – Privacy. In addition to looking at what’s happening at other institutions, the Privacy subteam spoke with Joe Zucca, who developed the Libraries’ new privacy policy with the University, as well as members of the Resources and Services Information group, who are using surveys and interviews to learn more about how the Penn Libraries uses patron data in the context of privacy, and who are also compiling a census of the data collected by the Libraries’ systems.
One notable characteristic about privacy at our own Library as well as our peers, is that it is marked by a set of different tensions including ideology vs. pragmatism, convenience vs. less control of personal information, and protection of users’ identity vs. protecting resources and other users vs. those who use systems in bad faith.
Within those tensions lie an number of common themes, including:
· Unintended use (and consequences) of maintaining user data.
· Many vendors provide content but their real product may be analytics.
· Certain unique digital resources require users to sign up and provide data.
· Open source solutions require more investment of time and expertise and knowledge.
· Privacy is becoming a focus of governmental policy and international standards just as vendors are launching streamlined but potentially data-hungry initiatives.
· Other forms of identity management are useful for scholarship itself (beyond access).
· Intellectual freedom
· Data is an ecosystem but privacy maintenance is distributed discretely.
· The “arms race” effect: As hackers and bad actors develop new attacks, new defenses are developed, often adding friction and making the discovery experience less friendly.
· In the absence of official guidance, and in the need to get work done, the burden of making decisions that may impact library user privacy falls upon library staff.
Other items: During an open house, we were asked why we only used publically available resources when doing the environmental scan of our peers, rather than interviewing their leaders and staff as well. The main purpose of the environmental scan is to help us assess what the broad strategic themes and trends are among institutions like ourselves. This can be ascertained with the publically available “face” that each institution presents. Scheduling and gathering input from individuals at all of these institutions would extend our timeline considerably without providing enough additional information about these broad trends and themes to justify the endeavor. In order for our strategic plan to be successful, the most important institution that we understand in a deep and thorough way is our own, and we’re making sure that we do that as part of our process.
The Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee met with representatives from DeEtta Jones and Associates and the Libraries’ senior leadership team on 7/22/19.
Reflections on Morning Staff Session: The meeting began with a debrief on the first all-staff session of the day, which had just concluded. The consensus was that the session went well, with an engaged audience that asked thoughtful (and thought-provoking) questions. It was confirmed that slides with further exposition would be made available to staff within the week. Video of the sessions will be edited and posted for staff to view as soon as possible.
Uniqueness of Penn Libraries: a review of the environmental scan themes presented at the all staff session turned almost immediately to the question of what makes an institution and its strategy unique, both in the broad sense and specifically regarding the Penn Libraries. Multiple people noted that while it was good to see what the common themes are in strategic plans, we shouldn’t forget to consider what sets Penn Libraries apart from other institutions. We discussed some of the specific aspects of Penn’s uniqueness, which included a relative lack of barriers to materials and services, outreach to the community, working as a preeminent collaborator with and convener of like-minded institutions, collaboration with publishers, and innovation and strength in the area of scholarly communications.
As it has in other venues, the idea was raised that that Penn Libraries does many great things differentiate itself from other institutions, but that these things are not always communicated to the University or the community at large.
All agreed that for the plan to be successful and impactful, it will have to thoroughly consider and reflect what makes the Penn Libraries a unique asset to the University, the community and the world.
Culture: Given the fact that it has come up so frequently in both the external and internal-looking parts of the strategic planning process, the group felt it was important to review What SPSC had been learning regarding effective workplace culture while all three groups (SPSC, leadership and DJA) were together. The need for staff engagement and empowerment, and clear, consistent communication and decision making were all acknowledged as vital to organizational success.
Change Agenda: Toward the end of the meeting, DeEtta Jones introduced the concept of the Change Agenda. The development of the Change Agenda will be a process shared by SPSC and the Libraries’ leadership team. It will involve analyzing all of our strategic planning inputs (environmental scans, deep dives, value sessions and others) and assessing , at a thematic and conceptual level, where we are now as an organization and where we want to be. This assessment is the Change Agenda and the Strategic Plan will grow directly out of that.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 07/19. The vast majority of the meeting was a working session in which members of SPSC and DJA discussed logistics for the 7/22 DJA site visit and ran through and provided feedback on the various presentations for the 7/22 all-staff sessions. The following topics were also briefly discussed toward the end of the meeting :
Environmental scans – additional considerations: The point was raised that as we do our environmental scanning, SPSC should consider not just library-powered initiatives, but also University decisions and actions that are not necessarily driven by the library, but have real (and sometimes large) impacts on the library. Examples include Cornell moving archives from under the library to central IT, or NYUs decision to make all librarians faculty. The group recognized the library’s limited control of these sorts of things but suggested close collaboration with our university partners can not only mitigate the impact of some of these decisions but make them work to the benefit of all.
Forum for creative ideas: the group discussed the question of the proper forum or structure for staff to put forward creative ideas to the organization. While there was a consensus that such a function would be outside the scope of SPSC, it was suggested that the group could perhaps put suggest a prospective structure or mechanism to serve this purpose. The group will continue to consider the possibility.
Open houses: The group agreed that since the first round of open houses was a success, a second round should be scheduled. This second round will continue to include non-Van Pelt sites and will also include an open house just for union members. Once confirmed, the times and locations of these upcoming open houses will be distributed to staff.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 07/21. The following topics were discussed:
7/22 and Community Café Logistics: SPSC was joined by members of the DeEtta Jones and Associates (DJA) team. The group discussed the prospective agenda for DJA’s 7/22 site visit and the associated all-staff meeting. Presentations and programming for the all-staff meeting will continue to be worked on and will be discussed and finalized at the 7/19 SPSC meeting. The group also discussed the logistics of the Community Cafés and the role they will play in the strategic planning process – it was agreed that a subset of SPSC would meet (virtually) with the DJA team to do the very specific and granular planning work required.
Values Sessions/Focus Group work: SPSC and DJA briefly updated each other on the work being done to synthesize the data from the values sessions and the stakeholder focus groups, respectively. DJA will have their synthesized findings to SPSC and the Libraries’ leadership team on 7/15. Findings from both will be presented to staff on 7/22.
Flowchart: SPSC is currently developing a flowchart that will be a quick, easy way to see all of our strategic plan’s inputs and their place in our planning process. The group and DJA discussed a draft and will implement further changes based on the discussion. Once it is finalized, it will be shared with staff.
Debrief on Divisional meetings: The group debriefed on the first set of Divisional meetings. The overall consensus regarding these meetings was positive. Suggestions were made for improvements such as staggering the meeting times so the person representing Libraries’ leadership could attend the entire meeting. The group talked about how these coordinated meetings are something new for the Libraries and will continue to evolve toward an ideal as we go along.
Deep Dive: Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) in Collections: The group discussed the Deep Dive topic, "Equity, diversity and inclusion in Collections," which includes content (levels and strategies for building collections, archives, ephemera, digital, and open access resources), textbook affordability, trends in metadata and description, programming, use of library spaces, and staff knowledge. Some of the key takeaways from the overall trends, peer scans, and discussions inside and outside the Libraries that contributed to the deep dive were the following:
Due to the Independence Day holiday on Thursday, July 4th, the team did not meet this week.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 06/21. The following topics were discussed:
Review of 7/22 All-Staff program with DeEtta Jones and Associates (DJA) – DJA joined this meeting remotely and the group collectively discussed the logistics and program for the upcoming DJA visit to the Libraries. Two all-staff meetings will be scheduled for the day(one at 10 am and one at 2pm; staff are requested to attend either but don’t need to attend both – it will be the same program). During these meetings, SPSC will report out on our activities thus far, including what we learned from our environmental scans of peer institutions and our staff values sessions, and DJA will report what they learned from the stakeholder focus groups. The sessions will close with an exercise geared to help develop the Libraries’ “change agenda”: a map for translating the recurring themes and shared values that emerged into our work and our strategic plan
In addition, the group updated the DJA team on the open houses and SPSC’s meetings with Constantia (see prior summaries for further details on these).
Recap of Departmental Libraries Meeting on 6/27/19 – Deb Stewart reported that she and Dick Griscom spoke about the strategic planning process at the most recent departmental libraries’ meeting on 6/27. Deb reported on SPSC’s activities and mentioned that there will be additional open houses, both at Van Pelt and at other locations.
Discussion of best ways to get staff input regarding the planning process– SPSC and DJA discussed what might be the best ways to obtain staff feedback , not just on values and strategic directions, but on the process itself. We agreed on some good preliminary ideas and will report out to staff once these are fully developed enough to present. One thing that was raised that everyone agreed on was the importance of staff being able to see themselves and their work reflected in the strategic plan.
Community Cafes – We discussed the logistics around the upcoming community cafes, which will be sessions at which staff can learn more about and provide feedback on selected topics from SPSC’s deep dive topics in a casual, conversational way. More information for staff regarding the community cafes will be forthcoming shortly.
Other items – DJA will be sending SPSC a schedule for the next phase of the strategic planning process, which will begin following the 7/22 all-staff meeting and run through the next couple of months. SPSC will disseminate to staff once we receive it. In addition, SPSC reminded DJA about the bibliography of sources in DeEtta’s original presentaiton to be made available to staff. DJA will pull this together and provide to SPSC.
On 6/26/19, Penn Libraries’ Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met with Constantia Constantinou to continue the conversation from 6/20/19 regarding the group’s activities and the strategic planning process thus far. The following topics were discussed:
Communication – Continuing the conversation from the prior week, Constantia let the SPSC team know that in the interim she met with the Libraries’ leadership team and apprised them of our discussion last week about the importance of communication as a cornerstone of the planning process and the Libraries’ success. The leadership team is working on initiatives to optimize communication - once these are finalized, they will be communicated to staff by the leadership team.
Further Meetings with SPSC – Based on the productive discussion at these two meetings with Constantia, it was decided that she will meet with the group roughly every three weeks to discuss our progress and continue dialogue around the strategic planning process. In addition, the SPSC team will attend the monthly meetings of the Libraries’ leadership team, so they remain abreast of SPSC’s activity and have an avenue for input.
Relationship of departmental goals, capital campaign goals and the Athenaeum 21 study to the strategic planning process - SPSC wanted to raise this topic since it’s a question we’ve been hearing from our colleagues. Constantia first explained that a key difference between initiatives such as these and the strategic plan is that these contain very concrete, actionable goals, whereas the strategic plan is intended to be a higher-level, broader document that speaks to the Libraries overall mission, vision and values rather than the more granular and specific results on which these initiatives are focused.
She went on to say that what SPSC must do is to derive the larger themes that drove the creation of those goals, and, even more importantly, the vision that will be served by the impact of these initiatives. SPSC should be looking at how these initiatives contribute to the Penn experience, and then extending the question to “how will the strategic plan deliver and empower the Penn experience?”
The role of Biddle/Penn Museum/Penn Archives in the strategic planning process – SPSC wanted to confirm what the role of Biddle should be in our strategic planning process, since they have a different reporting line than the rest of the libraries and could be potentially guided by a different strategic plan. Thus far SPSC has taken the approach of keeping our Biddle colleagues in the loop via our communications to the LIBRARYSTAFF email list and an open invite to any strategic planning events, with the understanding that they are free to involve themselves as much or as little in the actual planning process as they prefer.
Constantia stressed that even though the Law School might have its own strategic plan that Biddle is a key part of what we do and should be closely involved. Further, she suggested the importance of taking the Archives and Museum into account and hearing their voices as well as we develop our strategic plan. The discussion grew to encompass the topic of partnerships both inside and outside of Penn, and how important they are and will be to achieving our strategic vision.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 06/21. The following topics were discussed:
Open Houses – The group started off with a discussion of the ongoing open house sessions. Katie Rawson and Mike Williams went to the Katz Center to provide staff there with an overview of SPSC and the strategic planning process, and to field any questions. The conversation lasted a full hour and topics included the desire for staff development and learning opportunities (for both union and non-union staff) and the relationship of Katz to the rest of the Libraries (both individually and as a collective whole). Both the Katz staff and the SPSC representatives felt that the meeting was a valuable exchange of information. SPSC representatives will be going to other non-Van Pelt locations as well. We will let staff know about these meetings as they are scheduled.
The second Van Pelt open house took place on 6/20 – well over 50 of our colleagues attended. Questions and responses will be posted to the SPSC Libguide site.
Meeting with Constantia Constantinou – The group briefly recapped the meeting with Constantia the previous day. A full account of that meeting has been summarized and posted to the SPSC Libguide site.
Environmental Scan: Cornell – The first thing that struck the team about Cornell was the fact that there is an wealth of information easily findable via their website, including excellent staff-oriented documentation. The strategic plan itself was not available but the strategic priorities that derive from it are. These priorities are:
As alluded to above, there is an abundance of concrete evidence of actions taken to advance these priorities, presented in a variety of media such as annual reports, a web page dedicated to library stories, development of primary resources and a prominently displayed rotating sample of user questions on their homepage.
Cornell seems to be heavily invested in staff empowerment and recognition. There is an extensive section on the website devoted to staff profiles, as well as a very clear promotion path, learning opportunities and multiple avenues for employee recognition (both top-down and peer-to-peer).
Interesting initiatives include working with their local art museum to expand access to museum materials, collaborations with the university press, a full time libraries disabilities services coordinator, and creation of instructor testimonials regarding the libraries. Also, Library staff at Cornell have taught 22 four-credit courses in the past academic year, demonstrating a commitment to teaching patrons how to conduct research. Their documentation on digitization grants reflects a judicious and thoughtful approach to project prioritization with a clear and open application process. Tangentially related, they seem to possess a willingness to let go of initiatives in order to pursue other initiative that might result in greater impact, taking into consideration the finite resources of the libraries. Furthermore, they seem to be heavily invested in assessing that impact, both qualitatively and quantitatively. Overall, SPSC was impressed with Cornell.
On 6/20/19, Penn Libraries’ Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC) met with Constantia Constantinou to provide an update on the group’s activities and the strategic planning process thus far. The following topics were discussed:
Review of Guiding Principles - the meeting began with a review of SPSC’s guiding principles. They are:
Constantia agreed that these principles are a solid basis on which to build the strategic planning process. She then relayed a message from DeEtta Jones, indicating that SPSC is doing an exemplary job of communicating with staff and building the body of research that will inform the strategic plan.
Update regarding the Board of Overseers – Constantia debriefed the group on a meeting she had recently with the Chair and Vice Chair of the Penn Libraries’ Board of Overseers. She demonstrated the strategic plan Libguide site for them , and they were impressed with its depth and thoroughness. The group and Constantia collectively agreed that it would be a good idea to develop a monthly email to the board containing highlights of our weekly emails to staff to give them the option, as staff have, of receiving key information in an easily digestible email format or taking a deeper dive via the Libguide site. DeEtta Jones and her team have conducted stakeholder interviews and focus groups with board members and will be participating in the next board meeting.
Common themes from the Staff Values Sessions – SPSC and Constantia discussed some of the common themes and topics that emerged during the Staff Values Sessions that occurred on 5/30 and 5/31. All were in agreement that clear, consistent communication, appreciation of hard work, and a culture of transparency, respect and inclusion are necessary for not only the strategic planning process to be successful, but the Libraries as a whole. SPSC is working to exemplify this by making open, respectful, bi-directional communication with staff a keystone of its mission. The group recently instituted open houses for staff information and feedback and will be expanding them to non-Van Pelt sites such as the Katz Canter and LIBRA. All acknowledged the shared effort between SPSC, staff and leadership that will be required to make the strategic plan something that is truly effective and impactful.
Next steps: At the outset of the meeting Constantia and the group agreed that it would be better to fully discuss each topic rather than try to rush through an agenda. Therefore, the group agreed to meet again on 6/26 and possibly further on a roughly monthly basis to catch up. DeEtta Jones and Associates will be returning on 7/9 to discuss key topics from the values sessions and focus groups with staff, which will be followed (date TBD) by the “Community Café” sessions with SPSC , which will allow staff to ask questions and provide feedback on a number of topics in a more informal setting.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 06/14. Due to absences among the group, only administrative items were discussed. The topics were as follows:
Values Sessions worksheets and notes distributed for transcription – SPSC members have split up the notes and worksheets used by the groups at the staff values sessions. These will be anonymized and transcribed in order to determine overarching themes and ideas that emerged during the sessions.
Open House Recap – The group discussed the first open house, which occurred on 6/13, and the questions that were posed by staff – below are some of these questions , and the responses:
Leadership Team Meeting – The SPSC facilitators had a slot on the leadership team’s very full agenda for their 6/11 meeting. During their time the facilitators made three key points:
Preparation for meeting with Constantia – the entire SPSC group will be meeting with Constantia on 6/20 to report on our progress and ask any questions we have for her. The group developed a tentative list of topics for discussion. They are:
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 06/07 and the following topics were discussed:
Debrief of 5/30-5/31 DJA Site visit– The group had some final follow-up discussion regarding the focus groups and values sessions last month. Videos of the presentation portions of each values session will be posted to the SPSC Libguide. Notes and worksheets from the sessions will be have been collected by SPSC and will be used to inform next steps in the planning process.
Program for DJA onsite visit on 7/9 – The agenda is still being finalized, but the main program for the 7/9 DJA visit will be two sessions open to all staff at which DJA will report out on what was leaened from the values sessions and focus groups.
Open Houses & Office Hours – SPSC will be hosting two open house sessions in June. These sessions will provide an update on the group’s progress and activities, with an opportunity for Q&A. In addition, the group will be hosting drop-in office hours to field any questions or feedback from staff. The dates and times for these are still TBD.
Community Cafes – following the 7/9 DJA onsite visit (Date not finalized, but in July), SPSC will be hosting a “Community Café” session. This session will be an opportunity for staff to ask questions and provide feedback on a variety of topics in a casual, relaxed atmosphere. Topics will be drawn from what we learned from the focus groups and values sessions.
SPSC/Leadership Communication Opportunities – The SPSC facilitators will give a quick update to leadership on 6/11 as part of a round-robin of topics. Union leadership will have a similar opportunity at a subsequent meeting to provide their perspective on the process. The facilitators are also scheduled to provide a more in-depth update to leadership at the end of June.
Peer Scan – NYU – NYU is a similarly sized library to Penn’s, with about 6 million print volumes. They serve a larger university (over 60,000 students) and due to their location, have a large amount of traffic at their main library (about 2.5 million visitors per year, compared with about 1.9 Million visitors across all of Penn’s libraries). NYU has invested heavily in collections (expenses of about $31 million last year, 4th among ARL libraries).
NYU and Penn do share some interesting organizational similarities; like Penn, NYU recently welcomed a new leader (coincidentally also coming from the SUNY system), and are focused on improving communication and fostering external collaborations and partnerships. In addition, NYU is a mixed union/non-union workplace, with non-union staff plus staff represented by 3 different unions. Discussion of these similarities led the group to the conclusion that it may be beneficial to discuss organization and culture further with NYU
(Mini) Peer Scan – University of British Columbia – The group discussed the strategic framework of the University of British Columbia’s Libraries, which came to our attention this week. We were impressed with the values statement, which is direct and engaging. Another striking aspect of the framework was that it was presented not only as an end unto itself, but also as a vehicle to improve the culture of the library.
Other items
Sarah Wipperman (Scholarly Communications & Digital Repository Librarian), will be in Europe at the end of June and has offered to meet with European peers to find out more about their strategic directions. SPSC concurred that this was a great idea and will provide Sarah with some background and key questions in order to facilitate these conversations.
Perception of Penn Libraries by peers – being in the middle of learning more about our peers, the question arose of what our peers’ perception of Penn is. All agreed that it is an interesting question that we may want to explore further.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 5/31. This meeting occurred during the onsite visit from DeEtta Jones and Associates, during which focus groups and all-staff values sessions were held. The following topics were discussed at the SPSC meeting:
Progress Updates on Deep Dive Topic Research:
Culture and Workforce at the Libraries – The group talked about the best ways to engage the leadership team and how to foster a productive, bidirectional dialogue between the two groups. The group also committed to redoubling its efforts to include union-related discussion in the meeting summaries. The group reviewed the union’s goals and acknowledged that they are the same as the Libraries’.
Divisional Goals - On the topic of the divisional goals that were created as part of the rollout of the planning process, DJA indicated that they would be used as a check on the plan DJA explained that the division goals are at a level that is more granular and specific than what will be in the final strategic plan, so the important thing will be to ensure that the goals are aligned with the plan rather than specifically reflected in it. If they’re not, we’ll determine why and proceed from there.
Next Steps – SPSC an DJA will debrief at our next meeting about what we heard at the values sessions. DJA will code the notes from the focus groups and will provide high level notes and themes from the focus groups to SPSC within two weeks. Reporting out on peer scans and deep dives will continue.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 5/17 and the following topics were discussed:
5/30-31 DJA Onsite Activities – the group continued discussions about the logistics of DJA’s visit on Thursday and Friday (5/30-5/31). DJA will facilitate the focus groups – SPSC members do not need to be (and should not be) present for these, in order to foster a productive flow of feedback from participants. SPSC will provide DJA with a list of participants for each focus group and any relevant background material on participants. Focus groups will include the following constituencies: Undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, University deans and administration, and the Libraries’ union leadership. Input from the Libraries’ board of overseers is being arranged separately and should take place in early June (again, facilitated by DJA)
The all-staff values sessions will be facilitated by both DJA and SPSC, with an update from SPSC as part of the presentation to staff, and with SPSC members embedded with breakout groups for the values exercise. DJA will provide the handout that will be used to guide the breakout groups. Biddle staff are more than welcome to attend and participate , but there’s no obligation.
We briefly discussed preparations for the “world café” sessions (an event that affords the opportunity for quick and informal feedback). The participants should feel comfortable and in the mindset of a more social interaction – whatever generates that feeling is what we should do, and not necessarily feel bound by any template guidelines. These sessions won’t be until July, so the group will circle back closer to that time.
Peer Scans
Although Columbia’s strategic directions are not particularly unique, they are expressed with active, engaging language and are paired with specific accomplishments that demonstrate the strategic directions in action. With that said, some of the accomplishments are at an intermediate stage (i.e., “studying” or “evaluating” an issue rather than the actual initiative that the evaluation inspires)
Interesting initiatives Penn might want to keep in mind include unconscious –bias training for leadership, an employee engagement survey , and the institution of a student advisory committee that moves beyond the traditional advisory role and acts as a partner in new projects and services as well. Interestingly, their collections efforts are focused less on the traditional sense of bibliographic growth and more toward optimizing the current collection, through initiatives like large scale digitization and “unhiding” archival collections. There is also an emphasis on collective collecting, more via ReCAP than Borrow Direct, in which Columbia is also a partner.
Princeton welcomed a new University Librarian in October 2016 and is in the process of rolling out an extensive website redesign. Overall, SPSC found the website to be clear, visually appealing and templated in a way that was consistent but allowed for the individuality of different aspects of the Library to shine through. In some places, the somewhat stilted, “press release”-style language didn’t live up to the visual and UX promise, but this may be a product of the phased rollout.
Other impactful initiatives include a program that links personal librarians with each student, and the provision of borrowing privileges to families of staff, faculty and students. The Friends of Princeton University Library is an active group that funds acquisitions and provides short-term research grants.
Princeton also seems to have a strong focus on staff. There is a Library Education and Training Committee, to facilitate professional development and keep lines of communication open. The union is listed among Library contacts and its contract is publically available. In addition, periodic updates on the strategic plan’s progress are provided to staff – these are not available to the public, but SPSC knows this anecdotally from contacts at Princeton.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 5/17 and the following topics were discussed:
5/30-31 DJA Onsite Activities – The group continued to plan for the two-day onsite visit from DeEtta Jones and Associates, which will consist of all-staff values meetings and Libraries-external focus groups.
Peer Scan: Berkeley – Berkley is a larger institution than Penn, with almost 13 million print volumes and is part of a larger University of California system. UC Berkeley has approximately 30,000 undergraduates and 11,000 grad students, an enrollment that has grown 17% since 2010.
The strategic directions are presented in a very compelling manner, with a deep, multilayered narrative for each relatively simple strategic direction. There is a focus on stories and humanizing the strategic goals. In addition, for each direction, there is a two-part structure: What do we want to do, and how do we build the organizational capital to get there. This recognition of not only the goal, but of the necessary building blocks to achieve it is unique in our scans so far.
The overall impression of the website was one of great content, but somewhat weak connective tissue – there were many useful, informative and really well designed pages within the site, but they were not always easy to find.
Berkeley’s communication , both regarding the strategic directions and in general, is very open and forthright, and they emphasize a need for effective communication (they have 2 dedicated online spaces for telling stories - one is essentially a multimedia magazine for longer-form pieces).
Initiatives of interest include the extension of ILL to local high schools, an affordable course content initiative, which has saved students over $200,000, Library undergraduate fellowships and a focus on digitization (their digitization count tripled in 2017-18).
Other Items – At the Strategic Planning kickoff, it was established that DJA would set the agenda and participate in the first four meetings of the SPSC. Since this was the fourth meeting, we discussed their role moving forward. As SPSC begins to really delve into the environmental scan reports, DJA’s presence will not be as necessary at each meeting. Therefore, it was decided that they will participate in one meeting per month, plus anytime we think they can add value. SPSC and DJA will also continue to communicate regularly via Basecamp.
DeEtta took the opportunity to introduce Tyler Dzuba, a newly full-time consultant with DJA who will be working with SPSC and will be on site on 5/30-31.
We discussed the new question and answer guide posted on Basecamp – anyone from SPSC can add questions regarding the planning process as we receive them from staff. We can then collectively make an effort to answer them. Once the questions are answered, they will feed the Libguide FAQ.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 5/10 and the following topics were discussed:
DJA Onsite Visits: Scheduling and Process – The group discussed the logistics around DJA site Visits in May and July. The May visit will feature two days of DJA-facilitated focus groups and two all-staff values sessions. These will take place on 5/30 and 5/31. The all-staff sessions will be on consecutive days, with one in the morning and one in the afternoon, so as to maximize the number of people who can attend (they are the same session, so people don’t need to attend both). SPSC will recruit focus group participants, who will be external to the Libraries (faculty, staff, Overseers, etc.). Due to summer vacations, SPSC and DJA may need to be creative in participation modes for the focus groups, with Skype and call-ins as potential workarounds.
The following DJA onsite visit will take place on 7/9, and will consist of reporting out to staff on findings from focus groups and environmental scans, and meetings with SPSC and Libraries leadership to begin the strategic directions phase of the process.
SPSC Libguide – The SPSC facilitators walked the group through the SPSC Libguide site, which is presently posted and available publicly. Sections that are already present or in development include:
Environmental Scans
Duke’s expenditures are higher than Penn, while student and faculty populations are smaller. There was a large increase in staffing and spending at the end of the previous strategic plan (2015), followed by a significant dropoff.We were unable to find an explanation for this.
Like previous peers we’ve scanned, Duke’s website is a thorough, open, well-structured and informative repository of useful information.If anything, website shows that there are many impressive initiatives underway that are manifestations of their strategic goals, but not specifically identified as such. These include a data visualization lab, a focus on accessibility, data preservation efforts, and library metrics and assessment
The University, however, does have a strategy document similar to Penn’s Compact 2020.Items of note include a $25 million faculty diversity initiative , a recent $1.8 billion dollar gift that will allow admissions to be completely need blind, and community initiatives focused on local building hiring and buying.
The Libraries have 4.2 million volumes and 1.6 million e-books, with a strong focus on data services and associated facilities. Organizationally, the medical library (Welch)is separate from the other libraries (known collectively as the Sheridan Libraries). Museums and the university archives also fall under the purview of the Libraries.
The Welch Library building has been refocused as a service center, as much of STEM resources have moved online. The libraries are moving from a traditional liaison model toward becoming embedded informationists within their associated academic departments. The libraries collaborate closely with the university press, and have developed is a platform to assist researchers in complying with the access policies of their funders and institutions. In addition, they also provide the Entrepreneurial Library Program, which seems to essentially be a consultancy- Hopkins Libraries will develop custom library and information services for clients.
Hopkins also has some programs that have close analogues here at Penn – Their Hop-In program is very similar to Penn First and they run a system very similar to Expertise@Penn.
Other Items – The group briefly discussed how the departmental goals gathered prior to the convening of SPSC fill figure into the strategic planning process. The group agreed that there should be further discussion on this topic. In the meantime, the departmental goals will be posted on the SPSC Basecamp so they can be updated as necessary by relevant parties on SPSC.
The question of staff feedback arose in the context of whether group members should be integrating asynchronous feedback from staff into the planning process. It was agreed that it definitely should be, and it was further suggested that relevant feedback be posted on Basecamp for further discussion.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 5/3 and the following topics were discussed:
Guiding Principles – A consensus was quickly reached that the guiding principles need no further tweaking.
SPSC Libguide Site – It was decided that a Libguide will serve as the outward-facing information hub rather than a Canvas site. The Libgiude will feature a repository of documents, all of the weekly staff emails in digest format, access to DeEtta Jones’s presentation (and any subsequent relevant videos), and any additional useful information for staff. It was chosen over Canvas because it will be easier to access for staff and will also allow DeEtta Jones and Associates to access the site – they would not have been able to access a Canvas site, so this will prevent the need for copying communications and sending then documents separately.
Environmental Scan Updates – Subteams began reporting out on their scans of peer and aspirant peer institutions Yale and Toronto were first up. A more comprehensive guide to the scans will be developed upon their completion, but below are some high-level key points from each scan:
They are a large, extremely high-profile institution, (consistently ranked #2 in most ARL measures), but still have seen a 25% reduction in their physical footprint since 2009. They have a collaboration in place with the University of Singapore, focusing on both resource sharing and collection development.
They have an abundance of thorough, accessible information on their services, spaces and organization, including descriptions of all committees, pages on confidentiality and data use, and information on prizes awarded to students.In addition they provide a “Personal Librarian” program, that we may want to explore further.
They are an extremely large Library , with 44 branches and a main library 4 times the size of Van Pelt/Dietrich and an additional 5-story building currently being constructed next door. Their collection is comprised of over 15 million print volumes and an additional ~1.5 million digital titles. They have a deep focus on special collections and STEM.
The tone of their documentation and websites was striking as very celebratory – of patrons, researchers, staff and donors. They seem to embrace a culture of learning and staff development, with a dedicated staff development committee, frequently updated web resources and the ability for staff to host webinars with a minimum of hurdles. They have some forward-looking initiatives, focusing on topics such as Wikipedia, copyright training, and education regarding predatory publishers.
Toronto’s initiatives also display a focus on communities that intersect with the libraries, as demonstrated by extensive LGBTQ programming and the formation and work of the Indigenous Matters Committee. These initiatives suggest that Toronto is focusing to at least some degree on topics, issues and communities that distinguish it from other institutions.
Finally, Toronto is about 9 months ahead of Penn in its planning process – DJA offered to set up introductions for further discussion with them about their process.
World Cafes and Focus Groups – Emily from DJA explained to the group what “World Cafés” are and later posted a description to the group’s Basecamp site. These sessions will consist of a number of tables staffed by SPSC member(s). Each table will represent a specific topic and staff can provide their input to the SPSC members at each table. It serves as an efficient way to gather staff feedback on a variety of topics, in a less in-depth way than a focus group would. The focus groups (aka group interviews) are, by contrast, focused on a single topic or a few related topics and go much deeper with a small group discussion (ideally 10 or less). These would be facilitated by DJA, but SPSC will need to recruit the participants.
Bargaining Unit Survey – Yvonne presented a suggestion from the Union Executive Board for a 3-question survey to gather feedback from union members. The group agreed that this was a good idea and that SPSC will develop the survey once the environmental scan has been completed.
Additional items – The group determined what would be in the following Monday’s email to staff and began a schedule for reporting out on environmental scans and deep dive topics.
The weekly meeting of the Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee took place on 4/26 and the following topics were discussed:
Selection of Group Facilitators - After discussions both within and following the meeting, it was determined that Kate Lynch, Katie Rawson and Mike Williams will serve as the group’s facilitators. The “Co-Chair” terminology was jettisoned to better underscore the team effort of the group.
Finalization and Assignment of Deep Dive Topics - The following topics arose during our conversation and will be the ones for which that the group does some more intensive research and analysis:
For each topic, group members will be paired with a member of the Libraries’ leadership team that possesses a particular interest and expertise in the topic. They will analyze these topics using the framework provided by DeEtta Jones and Associates
Assignment of Peer Environmental Scans – Pairs of team members were assigned peer and aspirant peer libraries to analyze and report on. The peers/aspirant peers are Berkley, Columbia, Cornell, Duke, Johns Hopkins, NYU, Toronto, Princeton and Yale. As above, The framework for information gathering and analysis has been helpfully provided by DeEtta Jones and Associates
Communication plans and expectations – WE solidified the group’s communication plans, with the consultants, with leadership and, most importantly , with staff. Am Monthly meeting with leadership will be scheduled for SPSC to report out and answer questions. An email list will be set up to ensure clear, consistent communication from the group to and from staff. Weekly update emails will be sent to staff each Monday. Finally, a Canvas site will be created to serve as a staff-accessible repository for group documents, reports and feedback.
Guiding Principles – The group developed the following guiding principles which will be shared with the staff and serves as our commitments and pledges regarding the strategic planning process:
The Penn Libraries Strategic Planning Steering Committee had its first meeting on 4/19 with DeEtta Jones and Associates, the consultants that will be assisting us as we navigate the strategic planning process. We discussed the following, all of which were simply the opening portions of conversations that will continue during the planning process :
Timeline and Deliverables – The planning process will span April through October, culminating in the final draft of the strategic plan. In between, the group will complete an environmental scan of both peers and specific topics of interest, and develop Mission/Vision/Values statements, strategic directions, and key initiatives and goals – all of which will form the components of the final strategic plan.
SPSC Process/Structure/Group Norms – We began by discussing the broad purpose of SPSC (briefly, represent a broad cohort of our colleagues, be a conduit to Library Leadership, ensure staff engagement, and do the heavy lifting required to develop the plan). This informed the subsequent conversation about group structure and process , group norms (the basic rules of behavior and procedure that will ensure a rewarding and effective process ), SPSC’s role vis a vis Leadership and with DeEtta Jones and Associates, and how we will communicate to various audiences.
Strategic Thinking/Strategic Plans– We also talked about how to think strategically; to think audaciously and focus on what’s compelling and impactful and ambitious; to take a holistic view that identifies broad connections and takes different viewpoints into account; to acknowledge the past but focus on the future; and to be honest about the challenges we face. We also discussed the continually evolving format of a strategic plan – what were once long, dense, text-heavy documents have become a structurally simpler, visually interesting means to capture attention and communicate key ideas succinctly and effectively.
The group adjourned and will continue these and other discussions in subsequent weekly meetings.