First book

One of my professors seems to be on top of things.  He posted his green sheet (AKA syllabus) early, posted the BlackBoard password after that, and has all of the assignments lined up including due dates.  This works well for people like me, who hate to do anything last minute.

Although we don’t have any assigned reading from one of the books for the Information Organizations and Management class (#204), the professor states that we should skim and then begin reading this book because we will have to use and refer to it in our group project.  So, that’s what I’ve started to do.

The book is called Strategic Planning and Management for Library Managers by Joseph R. Matthews (Published 2005, Libraries Unlimited).  I’ve only read the introduction so far, and it seems OK to me.  Matthews writes that libraries need to look at how people receive information NOW, not how they received it in the past.  Then the library must shift rapidly to use the new ways of conveying information so that it does not lose its relevance.  He calls it the re-invention of an esteemed organization (p xi).

So far, Strategic Planning seems like a self help book for libraries.  It’s set up that way, for sure, explaining what a strategy is (and isn’t), why it’s needed, how to come up with and implement a strategic plan, and then monitor and update this strategy.  It even gives sample plans and mission statements, much as you would find in a self help book.

Either way, I have to read it, and I have to use it.  So far it’s not bad, and it has some cool quotations.  The one on page 3 is by Gordon R. Sullivan “Think of strategy as a bridge; values are the bedrock on which the piers of the bridge are planted, the near bank is today’s reality, the far bank is the vision.  Your strategy is the bridge itself.”