For the past few months, the library I work at has been working to do all the research necessary to put together our next long-term (5 year) plan. We are required to have up-to-date plans in order to get our state funding, and our director tends to take the whole thing really seriously, which is good.

The library has hired a library consultant to organize the whole thing and pull the results together into a plan with specific goals, objectives, and action steps. I have really enjoyed the process since I have been teaching it in my classes for a number of years. I have been sharing the experience with the students since it is nice to have more than the theory presented.

I have not been really thrilled with the consultant. He is a nice guy, but he is also a bit of a flake when it comes to what he is actually doing. Overall, I think he knows what he is doing, but in some ways he really goes outside the norm.

For example, you are supposed to try to get information about and from the people in the community that don't use the library with the hopes of trying to bring more people in to use the services the library is offering. He also has this weird need to constantly say things that are just a bit off or rude. We have even had patrons comment about it.

As part of the process, we encouraged people to complete surveys. We also had a series of focus groups that he led: seniors, adults, homeschoolers, the Friends group, the paraprofessional staff, the professional staff, and the teens. He has taken all the information from this research and other sources and compiled results that will produce the plan.

You are probably wondering why I am suddenly writing about this. Well, he sat down with the staff yesterday morning to go over the results and highlight what he has come up with. It is mostly because he believes that it is important to have staff support since they have to believe the plan can be implemented if it is going to work.

There were some interesting things that came out of the report. One example relates to the library's recent (over the last few years) efforts to build a new library. We already had one bond fail in 2006, and we opted to not even try this election cycle because of the economy. As a result of said economy Linens & Things has gone out of business. They happened to be one of the anchor stores in a nearby major shopping center. He suggested that we look into renting that space in order to get our new library. It has its pros and cons.

There were a few things that were specific to my department. During one of the focus groups, there were a few comments that we have too many programs where the middle schoolers are blended with high schoolers. They wanted more programs for just the middle schoolers, which are also called tweens (short for between kids and teens). It is true in a way. All the programs are marketed as being for the wide range of kids that I serve, but the vast majority of programs are really just attended by tweens.

The other big thing that he highlighted is something he said was going to be an objective, which has me thrilled. He is hoping that we will make the after-school center open all the time rather than just after-school. He wants to convert it into being an official young adult/teen room. I have been trying to talk the library into doing that for two years. Hopefully, this will help bring it about!

So, the resulting plan should be finished and approved by the library's board of trustees in a few weeks so I just have to cross my fingers and hope that it that suggestion survives into the finished product.