INFS 620

Week 3 – Group Discussion

Planning Strategies or operations?

Aretha Darwin, the new Director of the Management Library at Academia University,
was very proud to submit last week her strategic plan for the branch library to the
University Librarian, Eric Dacosta. Darwin, hired six months ago, took the time to
review previous plans, statistics regarding services, data about collections and to
consult the staff before writing the strategic plan. Yesterday, she had a meeting
with Dacosta to get feedback and to obtain his approval to develop the budget for
the next year.

Darwin had not changed the existing mission statement which reads as follow: “The
mission of the library is to support educational programs and research initiatives of
Academia University in the field of management.” She felt that it was still
appropriate. She had, however, identified two new goals:
“Goal 1: to acquire all published materials in management science and to increase
the acquisition of relevant electronic resources.
Goal 2: to improve access to the collections by increasing reference hours by 20%
by the end of year 2024.”

As soon as she arrived at the meeting, Dacosta expressed several concerns. He

found that the plan was rather brief, and he was not convinced that it was
addressing existing and future challenges. As a result, the plan did not seem to be
truly strategic. He also raised the fact that with the current inflation rate and the
lack of space in the library, it might not be realistic to seek to acquire all published
materials. Other strategies would need to be found. In addition, with the shortage
of staff, the objective of increasing reference hours did not seem feasible within one
year. Before Darwin could argue anything, Dacosta asked her to resubmit another
plan by next week.

Do you agree with Dacosta? Why?

What do you think Darwin should change in the plan?