Random thoughts on the strategic plan

After Tuesday's meeting, and reflecting on my conversation at the airport with Olivia and Carolyn, I decided to try rearranging the items in the current iteration of the strategic plan (access, preservation, etc.) to see if they made better sense in a different configuration.

It's very rough and in need of wordsmithing, but tell me what you think anyway. (We have demonstrated already that we're not blogging types, so commenting via phone or email is fine.  I used this because it was already set up and easy to edit.)

The the sections below  were developed by asking two central questions (influenced by Patty Iannuzzi's comments before the meeting):

1. What are our libraries uniquely positioned to do?  What do they do that nobody else on campus does? What projects do they take on from other areas of campus (sometimes out of some sense of obligation or to prevent loss of content)?
   
2. What can we do as a group to leverage our individual strengths? What can we do to support students and researchers collectively, regardless of location? 

I also have been thinking about strategic planning fatigue--everyone is on multiple planning committees for their library, institution, GWLA, other consortia, other professional organizations, etc.  I wonder if others find it exhausting or if the very phrase strategic planning fills everyone with fear and dread.   What if we called it something different?

The areas of focus below are a bit Ranganathan-esque, albeit unintentionally.  But maybe "kicking it old school" is not such a bad thing--everyone seems to be in the mood these days to get down to the core.  The examples of activities within each area are repeated multiple times within the postings--perhaps redundant, or perhaps illustrative of the interconnectedness of what we do.