Prepared by the NMRLS Strategic Planning Steering Committee
Pat Cloherty, Salem Public Library
John Courtney, Haverhill Public Library
Joe Dionne, Lawrence Public Library
Ben Franckowiak, O'Leary Library, University of Massachusetts Lowell
Doris Gallant, Wenham Public Library
Sharon Gilley, Lucius Beebe Memorial Library (Wakefield)
Camilla Glynn, Salem State College
Greg Pronevitz, NMRLS
Paige Roberts, Immigrant City Archives (Lawrence)
Anne Spraker, Masconomet Regional Jr./Sr. School
Jim Sutton, Memorial Hall Library (Andover)
Contents
Introduction
We must be poised to meet the future. The NMRLS Executive Board recognized the need to identify our strategic priorities and designed an inclusive process that gave all NMRLS members an opportunity to voice their ideas. The research and survey results summarized in this document will provide planners with concrete information on member priorities and our regional environment. The vision, mission, and strategic goals outlined in the NMRLS Strategic Plan 2000-2005 are meant to guide future planning by the executive board, committees, and staff.The Northeast Massachusetts Regional Library System (NMRLS) Executive Board charged the Strategic Planning Committee with planning to plan in late 1998. That Committee’s recommendation led to the formation of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee (SPSC), who recommended the plan to the board. The Executive Board is grateful to the Committee for its hard work and adopted the plan at its meeting in October 1999.
To craft this plan, we needed to understand the library/information and regional environment and how they might affect NMRLS and its members. A key aim of the SPSC was to give an opportunity to all members to provide input to the process. Our information gathering process involved 13 visioning sessions with members, a printed and online survey, and research by Committee members and consultants. The results of the Committee's research and survey are presented below. The vision and strategic goals presented in the NMRLS Strategic Plan 2000-2005 reflect the SPSC's analysis of these results. The information summarized in the Environmental Scan 1999 was critical to the decision-making process of the Committee.
NMRLS was incorporated in 1997. The evolution and planning process to create the organization took several years and significant effort from many librarians and library media specialists in the region. The formation of NMRLS grew out of a year-long strategic planning process by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners.(1) The plan called for the creation of four new regions where the former Eastern Massachusetts Regional Library System existed. This allows NMRLS members to continue and expand upon a 30-year tradition of cooperation in northeast Massachusetts.
The NMRLS Interim Planning Committee worked hard and thoughtfully to form the organization and create its initial plans of service. Future plans of service can now incorporate what we’ve learned from this process.
The NMRLS Executive Board extends its thanks to those contributed to the plan.
- Over 100 members who participated in our visioning sessions
- 130 member respondents to the Survey
- NMRLS and Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners staff who contributed opinions and data.
- NMRLS Strategic Planning Steering Committee members (listed on title page)
- Strategic Planning Committee members who outlined the plan and recommended this process:
Tom Edmonds, Andover Historical Society
Deirdre Hanley, Reading Public Library
Jim Sutton, Memorial Hall Library (Andover)
Greg Pronevitz, NMRLS, Chair
- Our consultants on the project:
Marshall Keys, MDA Consulting
Deborah Wallace, MDA Consulting
Environmental Scan
The SPSC scanned the environment in a number of ways. Committee members and consultants facilitated 13 visioning sessions. Over 100 participants contributed their opinions and ideas during these meetings. The Committee and consultants designed a survey instrument which allowed staff in all member libraries to contribute by mail, fax, and on the Web. The 130 respondents included 15 percent academic libraries, 41 percent public libraries, 36 percent school media centers, and 8 percent special libraries. Our consultants scanned the information environment and presented a summary of their findings. Members of the Committee researched relevant topics and contributed the results.Findings
We asked NMRLS members, "What keeps you up at night?" Many responded, loud and clear, "Keeping up with changing technology, funding, and staffing issues!" Members told us that the most important future opportunity for NMRLS is to provide leadership, information, and support to members in the transition to new technologies. Electronic reference databases, continuing education and training programs, and delivery service stand out as NMRLS' most important strengths and services.
The Information Environment and Library Technology
Libraries depend on rapidly-changing, costly technology to provide information services. Staff need ongoing training and updates to keep up. Private industry has a strong interest in providing information services in multiple formats. Not all commercial information providers are unbiased, and reliance on these companies may encourage uncritical use of biased information. If libraries fail to provide public access, commercialization may increase the gap between information haves and have nots. If patrons abandon libraries for commercial information resources, support and funding for libraries could erode, unless a virtual presense of libraries in the home and at the workplace becomes a standard access point for patrons. Other questions loom about public policy issues surrounding information retrieval such as liability and copyright issues in our rapidly changing electronic information world.
Library service vendors face competition from end-user services too. They view consortia like NMRLS from different perspectives. Some see group purchasing as a plus when they can make a sale to one organization with only one contact and keep administrative costs down. The lengthiness of negotiations and the sales process, however, are negatives when they delay purchase decisions by individual members.
When consortia act mainly as a buying group to reduce prices, service may suffer. Some vendors have cut corners in coverage and production to meet price competition. Consortia without an overall view toward member benefits may not provide adequate access to training and support.
The budget cycle in many libraries can cause problems. Some vendors see libraries moving too slowly to adapt to the latest technology as a threat and libraries may lose ground to other constituencies.
Library Staff and the Profession
There is tremendous excitement in the information world and the rapid growth of information resources makes librarians even more necessary. NMRLS will help libraries translate this excitement into recruiting and successful ways of telling our story to library funding agencies.
We face a number of challenges. Library staffs are aging. The Occupational Outlook Handbook states that many librarians are reaching retirement age. While slow job growth is predicted, some positions are difficult to fill in our region. There are often several openings for children’s librarians and some library media specialist positions go unfilled for lengthy periods. Paraprofessionals often find master’s programs too expensive or located too far away, preventing them from developing their careers. Librarians' salaries are low. The national average starting salary has just reached $30,000, according to Library Journal, while locally it can be even lower in a region with an above-average cost of living. Young people rarely see library work as a dynamic career choice, or one that will pay back on school loans. Many libraries need assistance in funding competititve salary scales and recruiting the qualified people they need to be successful in these changing times.
Graduate library education is changing. Library school deans see the need for both the nuts and bolts of librarianship as well as instructional skills, customer service, flexibility in the face of change, and the expectation of a lifetime commitment to continuing education.
The regional economy has been growing since a severe decline in the early '90s. Many residents are enjoying prosperity, real estate values have been rising, and unemployment has reached record lows. New homes and businesses are blossoming along the I-495 outer belt much like the inner belt development in the '80s. This booming growth is not expected to provide direct tax benefits to towns because the cost of infrastructure and services exceed the tax revenue. Regional financial growth does not filter down directly to libraries. Public and school libraries are hindered by Proposition 2 1/2 and other state and local tax statutes that require strong local buy-in to increase budgets. Some libraries have not caught up to where they were in the '80s before the economic downturn. Our special and academic library members never have an easy road to sufficient budgeting either.
The Commonwealth, through the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners (MBLC), is helping. Funding for multitype regional systems has provided some services to school library media centers and other libraries which would otherwise have been unaffordable. Our multitype nature brings a host of opportunities that will allow many libraries to benefit from success in other regional libraries. MBLC is continuing its efforts to bring growth to public library construction funding and state aid.
The Massachusetts and national economies have been cyclical over the past 20 years. If trends continue, we cannot expect the current growth to continue forever. How can NMRLS and its members brace for a change for the worse and the possible negative impact on libraries?
Is the regional reliance on the financial services sector a threat? An October 1998 report in The Financial Times reported that the Massachusetts population was above average in mutual fund investment and that 12 percent of state's earnings are in the financial services sector versus eight percent nationally. (3)
Library users are changing. A large proportion feel just as harried as library staffs. They barely have time to visit the library. Students don’t have time in their schedule to use the library media center at school. Many people spend two or more hours each day commuting. Others have a second job.
A growing number of users take advantage of remote access to services. Some non-users believe "everything" is on the Internet. How can we help them use these resources wisely when they are not in the library? Others see the printed page being replaced by electronic resources. Our forecast for 2005 envisions a continued strong need for books and periodicals.
The public perception of the library has many facets. Overall, libraries are supported and trusted institutions. However, the integration of technology make some users feel that the library is too far ahead or to far behind the times. Change from the traditional roles may confuse or dilute public loyalty. How can libraries retain user loyalty and support when patrons don’t have time to stop in? (4)
Between 1987 and 1997 the number of Commonwealth residents over age 45 has increased by more than 12 percent while the total population is up only three percent. Other population growth ranges are ages 35 – 44 at 21 percent and 5 – 14 with an increase of over 17 percent. We need to prepare to serve growing numbers of an aging population and young adults while the population aged 15 – 34 is decreasing.
Over the next 40 years there is an expected $10 trillion in inheritance and wealth transfer to be passed on nationally. Libraries must tap into this source of contributions. (5)
We are becoming more diverse. According to the US Census Bureau, the percentage of non-Hispanic white people in Massachusetts will decrease from 85 to 80 percent between 1995 and 2005. By 2025 the percentage will decrease to 70 percent. Some writers believe low birth rate in developed countries and increasing immigration will be the key factors in our future globalized economy. Member libraries have responded to immigration by offering English as a second language, foreign language collections, and outreach programs.
