Summer is here and the library team has been busy wrapping up spring projects and making plans for the coming year. As part of this annual process, we spend a lot of time looking back to figure out where we are headed! Each spring, we go through a fairly complex process of assessing last year’s goals, identifying priority projects, and mapping these out so that the workloads are manageable (and folks can succeed!). Despite our best efforts to identify organizational priorities, we know our collective work is complex and there will be things that inevitably fall outside of our identified strategic priorities (so we leave a little room for the unknown). The identified strategic priorities are intended to serve as a guide as we plan our individual work within the larger strategic picture.
The library’s strategic directions are aligned with Davidson College’s purpose of assisting students in developing humane instincts and disciplined and creative minds for lives of leadership and service. The College’s aspirations provide further guidance in living out our shared commitments to a vibrant future. Finally, the library’s values encapsulate our sustained devotion to inclusion, discovery, openness, engagement, and stewardship.
From the library’s current strategic directions, we’ve identified priorities that will strengthen our capacity, build on existing success, and provide a strong foundation for our future library. The following objectives, aligned with team-generated “great ideas” identified as priority projects, will guide the library’s work for FY24:
- We will cultivate a holistic student workforce program that aligns with high-impact practices.
- We will define the library’s role in access and use of College scholarship.
- We will focus efforts to ID, digitize, and make Davidson’s unique collections more discoverable across the globe.
- We will make way for the Library of the Future!
In the coming year we will work together to intentionally and reflectively engage our collective student workforce. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts. As a joint team, we will help our students develop transferable skills and articulate how their experiences with us connect to the larger story of their goals at Davidson and beyond. Additionally, we will articulate the library’s relationship to college scholarship and develop a comprehensive policy that addresses the collection, promotion, and preservation of print and digital college scholarship. As part of this work, we will assess, recommend, and implement changes to systems, workflows, and procedures that demonstrate our deep commitment to making Davidson’s collections discoverable across the globe. The Library of the Future is not some distant concept. To ready ourselves for the future library, we will tackle collections projects; formulate service plans, policies, and programming; reimagine our models of service in alignment with our library of the future aspirations; and establish sustainable structures, processes, programming, and policies needed for our organizational success. When the time comes, we will be ready.
If you’re interested in hearing more about any of our projects or strategic initiatives, I’m always happy to chat about our work. Until then…have a great summer!
