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Black River Falls Public Library
Wisconsin’s first public library develops first strategic plan to guide direction through 2022.
Black River Falls Public Library
Project Details
Black River Falls (WI) Public Library serves approximately 19,000 residents in Jackson County and the city of Black River Falls. The current library facility was built in 1995 and is a hub of community activity.
The 2019 planning process resulted in a plan to guide the library through 2022, which includes a library director transition due to a retirement. The strategic plan was shaped by a community survey, focus groups, and retreats held by Board and staff members.
Lapeer District Library
Northeastern Michigan library district adopts plan with a vision of serving as a community resource, gathering place, and educational hub.
Lapeer District Library
Project Details
Geographically located north of Detroit, Lapeer District Library (LDL) is a Class 6 library serving over just over 60,000 people (around 20,000 cardholders) with one central library and six branches. (LDL services the City of Lapeer and the townships of Arcadia, Burlington, Burnside, Deerfield, Elba, Hadley, Lapeer, Marathon, Mayfield, Metamora, Oregon, and Rich.)
The planning process started in July 2019 and was guided by a Planning Team with extensive input from the community, Board members, staff, and other key stakeholders. A community survey garnered 190 responses with 33 people attending focus groups or participating in interviews. The library also gathered grassroots feedback at each branch and via social media.
Indian Trails Public Library District Foundation
Public library district foundation aims to build capacity and increase fundraising through strategic messaging.
Indian Trails Public Library District Foundation
Project Details
Indian Trails Public Library District is located in Wheeling, IL and serves a population of 67,000 residents located in Wheeling, Buffalo Grove, Prospect Heights and Arlington Heights. The ITPLD Foundation exists to add value to the library and allows the library to provide additional community impact.
In 2018, ITPLD Foundation’s board engaged in fundraising training and a strategic planning retreat resulting in a two year plan to improve fundraising efforts. In 2019, the Foundation will review messaging and goal setting practices and improve donor tracking and outreach. They will also spend time creating community connections through various communication and event efforts. As they better articulate their purpose and goals to donors, ITPLD Foundation will pursue focused activities and learning to solidify their fundraising goals. In 2020, the Foundation will continue to grow engagement through planned fundraising events with specific donor appeals and strategies.
Minnesota Library Association
State library association designs future goals and strategic direction based on member interests and needs.
Minnesota Library Association
Project Details
Minnesota Library Association provides advocacy, education, engagement, and leadership for a membership of over 600 multi-type libraries across the state. They underwent a comprehensive planning process to provide the organization with strategic direction through 2021.
Concerned with increasing engagement and education for their membership, the MLA planning team sought input directly from members as part of their planning and relied on evaluative feedback from surveys, focus groups, interviews, and a member summit. The team consulted plans from other state library associations and sought board and management input, as well. An environmental scan revealed areas of concern for libraries including funding, information security and data privacy, social perceptions of libraries, diversity and equity considerations, net neutrality, and more. A SWOT analysis performed during the summit served to outline current issues specific to MLA and their members. The team was able to craft new vision and mission statements as guided by summit participants, and goals and activities were defined for each new strategic direction. MLA adopted their plan in December of 2018.
Highland Park Public Library
With a community focus, library considers strengths and needs to shape future goals.
Highland Park Public Library
Project Details
Highland Park Public Library serves a population of 30,000 and is located in the northern suburbs of Chicago. They adopted a three-year strategic plan to take them through 2021. 
Highland Park’s process began with a review of existing data, a community survey, and focus groups conducted with community members. The survey and focus groups revealed several current strengths and a few areas ripe for improvement. With these factors in mind, future needs were considered and outlined as a means to guide further discussion with the board and staff. The planning team narrowed down new vision and mission statements and honed the strategic directions for the plan. A staff retreat helped shape the final plan, and goals, potential activities, and measures of success were outlined for each strategic direction. Overall focus areas for learning and enrichment, optimizing resources and collections, and strong organizational capacity will guide staff in their activity plan and continued evaluation through 2021.
Palatine Public Library District
Library launches strategic plan that builds on community engagement.
Palatine Public Library District
Project Details
Palatine Public Library District is located in the northwestern suburbs of Chicago and serves a population of 89,000. The Library had financial and long-range plans in place but sought to unite and inspire their plans with community and staff input.
Library Board and staff members met to review existing data and learn about community needs. Through consultation of a community survey, interviews, library statistics, and plans from other community organizations the board and staff began to outline Library strengths and challenges. Focus groups were formed to increase understanding of community concerns. Board and staff retreats helped to narrow the Library’s vision, mission, and new strategic focus areas of experience, engagement, and endurance. Palatine Public Library District was then able to to move forward with a cohesive new strategic plan allowing staff to draft an activity plan for implementation.
Lakeland Library Cooperative ILS
New strategic plan guides ILS in three focus areas: training, technology, and organizational development.
Lakeland Library Cooperative ILS
Project Details
Lakeland Library Cooperative Integrated Library System (ILS) in western
Michigan provides resource sharing tools for their 40 public library members. Their goals of cooperation, resource sharing, and service to users for libraries of all sizes make up the backbone of their new strategic plan. Data from a member survey allowed for valuable input and helped LLC ILS narrow the focus of their new plan to three specific categories: training, technology, and organizational development. Focus groups, interviews, and a Member Summit provided forums for further discussion and brainstorming as the strategic plan began to take shape. Staff worked to refine new vision and mission statements as well as definitions for each focus area.
The new strategic plan outlines goals, activities, and measures of success for each of the three focus areas. Following adoption, LLC ILS implemented an Activity Plan that builds on the focus areas and helps guide staff through evolution of the goals and activities. Their SWOT Analysis is a further example of their work towards specific goals setup by the new strategic plan. Specific metrics for continued evaluation will be gathered and progress reported to LLC ILS members.
Broadview Public Library District
Future services and programs informed by library’s community survey.
Broadview Public Library District
Project Details
Broadview Public Library District, located 12 miles west of Chicago, engaged in a community survey to learn more about patron satisfaction and future needs. The survey helped establish baseline data regarding respondent knowledge of specific library services and programs to help the library develop outreach messaging to attract new users.
Through the survey, the library learned the top reasons why people use the library along with barriers for increased usage. Broadview PLD specifically used the survey to spread the message about the value of a library card, so some questions compared free or low-cost library services to similar services available in the community for a higher fee. In addition, respondents offered comments about why a library card is a good value.
Future focused questions delved into why respondents like living in the community, how to improve quality of life, and what’s not being offered in the community that could possibly be offered at the library. These responses will help the library plan activities for the near future and be the foundation of a strategic planning process.
Indian Trails Public Library District
New strategic plan focuses library’s goals in culture, connection, and creativity.
Indian Trails Public Library District
Project Details
Even in the parking lot, you can tell that the Indian Trails Public Library District (ITPLD) is a special place. Having recently completed a building renovation and expansion, the library was ready to take on strategic planning in 2017. Located in Wheeling, IL, the library’s district covers not only Wheeling, but parts of Prospect Heights (including a storefront branch there) and Buffalo Grove northwest of Chicago.
During the planning process, the library completed a community survey and received a 90% satisfaction rating from respondents. Meetings with the board and staff, along with a series of public focus groups, affirmed three focus areas: Culture, Connector, and Creativity.
“The feedback from the management team who have done the whole strategic planning process in the past is that this process was probably the best and had the clearest outcomes for how it will be used going forward,” said Brian Shepard, Executive Director of ITPLD.
The planning process resulted in a one-page plan graphic that is a high-level snapshot of the library’s Vision, Mission, and Focus Areas. In addition, the detailed plan includes the goals for each Focus Area. Both plan documents are visually appealing and will be instrumental in communication about the library’s strategic direction.
PrairieCat
Strategic planning process brings consortium members together for growth and impact.
PrairieCat
Project Details
One hundred twenty-seven libraries in Reaching Across Illinois Library System (RAILS) share an integrated library automation (ILS) system known as PrairieCat. The consortium includes public, school, academic, and special libraries of all sizes in northern Illinois. In 2017, PrairieCat members initiated a strategic planning process to inspire their next phase of cooperative services.
The planning process included Zone Meetings across PrairieCat’s large geographic area to gather member thoughts about opportunities and barriers. Next, a member survey asked for more specific feedback about four key areas. Finally, members came together at a Summit to brainstorm activities that would help achieve internal and external goals.
The resulting plan will guide PrairieCat for the next several years as they explore new ways to engage members, improve training, evolve their governance, and enhance user experience.