While organizations, corporations, and sometimes school districts bring together key members and a facilitator for one or more days to develop their strategic plan, you can do one on your own, although if you can get others to join you it’s likely to be even better.  The reason why strategic planning is considered important is that you set a direction for the next three years, understanding where, why, and how to concentrate your efforts.  Adjustments are made as you go along, and at the end of each year you can see how close you get to attaining your goals.

Speaking of goals—they are the first thing you need to write now that you have your Mission and Vision.  What are two or three goals you would like to achieve over the next three years?  Perhaps you want to develop stronger collaborations with teachers.  Or maybe, you want to increase your student’s recreational reading. These goals are yours.  They should further your Mission and/or Vision, and they should take time to accomplish.

Once you have your goals set, you are ready to determine how to realize them one year at a time.  For each goal, determine one or more Action Plans.  For example, if you want to develop stronger collaborations with teachers you might have an action plan to connect with three of them on an inquiry-based project, or zero in on a specific department or grade level.  Choose carefully.  Which are most likely to be open to your approach.  If you want to increase recreational reading, what program would best fit your school to get interest started?  One school, one book?  Battle of the Books?  A skyped author visit?

How will you accomplish each of your Action Plans?  Set up a spread sheet with your Mission and Vision on top, and then the first goal.  Identify the Action Plan(s) for the goal, and list who will be involved.  Obviously you would, but who else?  Which teachers?  Will you need something from an administrator or the tech department? When will each piece begin and end?

Most important of all is a column for assessment.  How will you evaluate each of the pieces?  Note what worked and what didn’t.  Perhaps a teacher you planned to work with had to leave mid-year.  Things beyond your control always come up.  Also you may have not factored in something important.  Don’t despair.  It’s all a learning experience.  Congratulate yourself on the parts you got right.  Even if you have only achieved one small step forward, at least you were able to move your program in a direction you set.

Now you are ready for year two of your Strategic Plan.  Your goals stay the same, but you need new Action Plans.  Based on how your first year went, you have a better idea of what is possible. By the end of year three, your program will have moved forward appreciably, and you will have had a sense of accomplishment as each year draws to a close.

Get started over the summer in developing your Strategic Plan.  Schedule a visit with your principal or supervisor—they are much more accessible in summer—and share your plan. You might even get an early buy-in. v

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While a Mission defines your purpose in a powerful way designed to show why your program is indispensable to the educational community in general and student learning and achievement in particular, a Vision boldly proclaims where you want to go.  It is not a statement of where you are.  When well-done it can attract others who want to see it realized.

If a Mission Statement represents your perspiration, what you do each day, a Vision is your inspiration and aspiration.  It’s your secret hope and dream.  No matter how far you are from achieving it, this is why you became a librarian, to provide the exemplary contribution which would result if and when the Vision is realized.

To begin constructing one, close your eyes.  Picture what the library program and facility would look like and feel like if you had all the resources and funds needed to make it come true.  Think big. Jot down words and phrases describing what you envisioned.  Is it welcoming?  What makes it that way?  How does it provide the framework for thinking, learning, creating, and sharing? What does the program deliver to meet the needs and wants of all stakeholders?

Take those words and your mental image of this imagined future and turn it into one or more sentences. How long is your attempt?  Ideally it’s a little over 25 words not counting “The Vision for the BLANK library program is.”  You don’t want to go over 50 words.  It makes it too hard to memorize.  As with the Mission, print it out, “decorate” it if you choose, frame it, and hang in a prominent place in the library as a reminder to you and a message to all who enter.

Here is an example: The Vision for our library program is to be a welcome, stimulating space where the latest in technology and resources, and the physical environment are vital to academic and personal learning guided by the librarian.   Is it perfect?  No.  It doesn’t include a literacy component.  “Developing lifelong readers” is probably in your Mission Statement. Whether or not you want to include literacy, or want something else in your statement, the choice is yours.   This is your Vision.  You want it to reflect your ideal situation.  The only requirement is that it be big.

Does the sample Vision scare you?   It is only 27 words but it would seem unreachable for most.  That’s the point.  Don’t think it will never happen.  Remember Vision is about inspiration and aspiration.  If you don’t have a goal or target, you won’t ever get there.

Leaders are visionary.  Their compelling vision is what draws others to them. Read the example again.  Would your teachers want the library program to be this way?  Would your administrators?  What about parents who might drop in?  When you put something this big out there for all to see, you never know what will happen.

Post the Vision Statements you create as a comment here.  I am happy to offer suggestions to help you make it as strong as possible.

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Now is the time to prepare for next year and to start, take the time to craft a mission statement.  The mission defines your purpose—what you and your library program do.  It should highlight what makes you unique and vital to the educational community and expressed in words laymen can understand.  You can start with the mission AASL gives in Empower Learners: Guidelines for School Library Media Programs (ALA, 2009).

The mission of the school library media program is to ensure that students and staff are effective users of ideas and information.  The school library media specialist empowers to be critical thinkers, enthusiastic readers, skilled researchers, and ethical users of information (p. 8).

How it is done is included, but that’s not part of a mission statement which needs to be succinct, between 25 and 50 words. AASL’s statement is 32 words beginning with the word “to.” The reason for the brevity is so that it is easily remembered and can be framed and hung on the wall of the library for all to see.

That mission was written six years ago. Today we recognize an important part of what we do is ensure that students are also empowered to be producers of information.  Despite that important addition, the mission statement should be recognized for its use of strong words. Ensure and empower carry much more weight than “support and enrich” or even “foster and nurture” which frequently appear in school library mission statements. Avoid “can” as in “so students can…”  It will be stronger if you go directly to the next word.

You can borrow wording from the AASL statement and add other ideas important to presenting what you do and how it adds value to the school community.  In lower grade levels, love of reading leading to lifetime readers is a prime focus. While it is equally necessary at middle and high school grades, those you want to see why you are vital do not usually consider it as significant as student interaction with information.  You want to promote what you do but do it in such a way that your stakeholders recognize they need your contribution to the educational program.

Play around with the words you think are important.  Search under “school library mission statements” to find examples others have written.   Are there phrases you want to use in your statement?  Make sure you keep it in the present tense.  Review it.  Are the words powerful?  Does it show how you are unique? Once you get it within the length requirements, start memorizing it.  Print it and find a frame for it.  Proudly hang your Mission Statement on your wall for all who come into your library to see it.  And if you want help… send me an email at hilda@slworkshop.net

Next week – Vision Statements.

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Much as we enjoy the excitement of the season, it’s good to have time to relax, refresh, and rejuvenate. (I seem to be finding a lot of “r” words.) This is the “between time.”  This the quiet period as we celebrate the New Year and get back to our normal daily routines.  Fallow periods are necessary to promote growth.

Take a tip from the ancient Romans who pictured Janus, their god of gates and doors for whom January is named, as having two faces. One looking forward and the other backward.  Before you completely close the gate on 2014, make time to reflect back on the year that ended. Remember the good things that occurred.  Think of the students you helped.  The ones who thanked you, and those who did so without words.  What we do is too important not to acknowledge.  And if we don’t recognize our contribution, how can we expect anyone else to do so.

Even if you keep your acknowledgements to yourself, it will make change the way you interact with teachers and students.  Remember, most communication is non-verbal.  Without being aware of it, our thoughts and attitudes influence how we stand, hold our arms, and walk.  Others pick up on these non-verbal clues. Whether we hold ourselves in high self-esteem or feel downtrodden, we send a message.  Which one do you want to send?

Many people make New Year’s resolutions (another “r” word), and for some this works.  On the whole, good intentions seem to evaporate sometime before January is over. When it happens, the tendency is just to give up—and that is true failure. Rather than resolutions, “re-focus.” Don’t wait until New Year’s Day.  By then you are likely to be bemoaning that winter vacation passed so quickly.  You didn’t do everything you hoped to accomplish, and now you are scrambling to get ready to get back to work.

Make some time and sit down with a pad or tablet, and contemplate what is coming up in the months from January until the end of the school year. What units do your teachers do?  How can you make them a better learning opportunity for students? How can you share that information with teachers?  Are there apps and websites you want to explore to refresh the ways you capture student interest?  Can you find out from your students which ones are exciting them? Now that  school has started back up, you will be busy, but do what you can to make time at the beginning – or the end – of each of your days to check in with your goals and to-do’s.  Each time you do, you’ll reconnect (!) with your passion and continue to be energized and raring to go.

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What does this have to do with libraries, librarians and your program?

Most of us have become goal-directed.  Certainly our jobs require it. Writing Student Growth Objectives (or whatever terminology your state and/or district call it) demands you focus on reaching set outcomes to demonstrate your contribution to student achievement. Aside from those, you may have a strategic plan –written or mental—designed to improve your program. And then there are personal goals—for fitness, weight, home improvement, financial, or any other target important to your life.

When we set those goals, they may seem distant and at times unattainable.  We picture completing them as having reached the finish line with metaphorical crowds cheering out victory.  Yet the truth is – life goes on.  There isn’t a finish line until the very end.  What we attain when we achieve a goal we set is a milestone, not a conclusion.

The Common Core has all of us focused on benchmarks indicating what students are expected to be able to do at the conclusion of a grade level.  When they reach it, they have not arrived at the finish line but are moving on and using what they learned to achieve the next one.  Beyond the Common Core—having proved themselves “college and career ready” – their learning and growth can never stop or we and they have failed.

In preparing students for lifetime learning, we as librarians need to take on the challenge of going beyond Common Core (as unsettling as that may sound).  Critical Thinking is not an end, it is means, and must be paired with Creative Thinking if students are to become the innovators.  The first is convergent in its focus, the second divergent.  Where they overlap, is where new ideas are put into action.  Two circles and the wheel turns and repeats.  There is no finish line, only milestones on a life journey.

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The first threesome consists of PR, marketing, and advocacy. AASL has simple definitions for the three on its website http://www.ala.org/aasl/advocacy/definitions.  PR and marketing are tools for building support from stakeholders.  We are not supposed to be the ones advocating.  Others should be doing it for us. The challenge is getting them to recognize why they need us.

I have come to realize that the word “advocacy” isn’t resonating with anyone. It has become more of a plea for help in saving our jobs, making us sound weak and needy. Not an image we want to cultivate.  How did that happen, and what can be done to change it? 

My suggestion is to begin with another threesome: leadership, networking, and legislation.  Leadership is first.  People must know who you are and what you give them.  Note that what you give them must be what they want, not what you think they need.  It requires that you get to know your stakeholders and what they value and then be visible in meeting those needs.  (Use PR and marketing to help get the word out.)

Networking means outreach and creating relationships.  Who do you know?  How do you leverage those contacts?  What do you give them?  How do you acknowledge them?  Are you using current methods i.e., social media to maintain the relationships?

Finally become politically aware.  Challenges to your program don’t always arise at the district level. Both state and federal governments have negatively impacted our programs.  Get alerts from ALA’s Washington Office http://www.ala.org/wo and respond to requests to contact legislators.  Better yet, ask your network to do as well.  It takes almost no time.  Find out what your state association is doing with legislation.  Know your local government officials and look for ways to make them welcome in the library—with photo ops.

Is this time consuming?  Yes!  But putting in the work here (you can create a targeted strategic plan for doing it), could be just what is need to insure you “Live Long and Prosper.”  I know many of you are doing this. How did you reach out? What do you suggest to fellow librarians?

AND –  If you want help – consider taking advantage of SLW’s new program of “ASK HILDA!  Send me an email at hilda@slworkshop.net and I’ll be in touch. 

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What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore–
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over–
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

© Langston Hughes http://www.cswnet.com/~menamc/langston.htm

I always loved the poem not ever seeing how it applied to me.  An avid reader from my early childhood, I dreamed of someday becoming an author myself.  Perhaps you share that dream as so many readers do. I was ecstatic when my first book, co-authored with Ruth Toor, The Elementary School Librarian’s Almanac: A Complete Media Program for Every Month of the School Year (The Center for Applied Research in Education, 1979, 256 p. 0-87628-299-0) was published.  It was followed by fourteen other books for school librarians.  The latest being School Librarian’s Career Planner (ALA, 2013, 126 p. 978-0-8389-1178—5).  I am proud of all of them, but this wasn’t the writing career of my dreams.

In 2004, I retired as a high school librarian (obviously, that’s all I retired from) and the following June when I would have been working, my daughter took me with her to International Women’s Writing Guild’s summer workshops then held at Skidmore College. Along with lots of other writing I did during those five days, I started a novel in one of the classes.  I completed it in fits and starts thanks to the gentle (and not-so-gentle) prodding of others.

Six drafts later, a hunt for an agent proved fruitless.  (I may not have been sufficiently diligent.) Then a small independent publisher began a separate company for young adult books and accepted Woven though Time.  On October 9, my dream of so long ago became a reality.  In the opening of the “Acknowledgments,” I say, “Sometimes it takes a village to make a dream come true,” and conclude, “never lose sight of your dream, and share it with the people who care about you.  They may very well be the ones who help you make it come true.”

Do you have a dream you think will never be realized?  Try sharing it with others and find a plan to make it a reality.  With a few weeks to go before the end of the year, now is a great time to put things in motion.

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