Apply the fundamental principles of planning, management, marketing, and advocacy
Introduction
With the ever-changing information landscape, libraries take on business-like practices to ensure effectiveness with providing services and resources to their communities. Business tools such as planning, management, marketing, and advocacy assist LIS professionals in keeping libraries operating smoothly.
Planning
“Every organization must have a strategy to be successful” (Rosenblum, 2022, p. 255). Libraries and information organizations find themselves in an evolved information landscape where there is a lot more competition for resources. For libraries to ensure relevance, strategic planning is a necessity. Just like any business, libraries aim to solve problems whether that is as broad as equity of access or more narrow like starting a new technological loaning program for an academic library. “Strategic planning is an essential element of organizational management” (Rosenblum, 2022, p. 256). To ensure long term success as an organization, libraries create strategic plans to map out future goals and to work towards new developments that are in sync with the library’s mission, vision, and values. Strategic plans typically follow a process of creation and run for a three to five year timeline. Many library strategic plans are created in alignment with their parent organization, for instance academic and school libraries. The strategic planning process is extensive and is most successful when various internal and external stakeholders are involved (Rosenblum, 2022). To prepare for a new strategic plan, libraries run a needs assessment, an environmental scan, and a strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) analysis (Rosenblum, 2022). These tools allow for a general understanding of the current state of the library, any needs that should be addressed, the current conditions of the community and any trends and behaviors that may help or hinder the library’s progress (Rosenblum, 2022). Once a general understanding of the internal and external environment of the library is completed, planners begin to create goals and objectives for the next three to five years. Once a plan is created, the process of sharing and implementing the plan and any changes that need to occur is done by management.
Management
Libraries typically function with a hierarchical management structure with a director, dean, or general manager at the top and department heads and other leadership members trickling down to the front line workers. However, some libraries function with a more flat management model where it is team-based with project managers leading various aspects of the library such as assessment, marketing, planning, and EDI work. Having managers who know how organizational practices are done and how to budget and secure funding resources is critical to success (Moran, 2018). Of the many operational functions of management are funding, organizing and planning, and working with people. Whichever management structure is used, those in management positions need to be well versed in various leadership and organization practices to ensure the library is successful in achieving its goals and objectives. It is critical for library environments to keep up with the needs of the changing information environment (Barefoot, 2022). Without the ability to effectively make proactive changes to services, resources, and staffing libraries can find themselves unable to meet their communities needs (Barefoot, 2022). It is important as managers to assess the need for change, and know how to go about enacting change. This involves communicating with LIS professionals, community stakeholders, and organizational leadership to ensure resources are available to enact a change process. According to Barefoot (2022) the key skills to lead a library to a successful change process include being able to develop and articulate a vision to successfully implement with staff buy-in. Management requires many interpersonal and organization skills to ensure processes are run smoothly and effectively.
Marketing
It is critical for libraries to engage and communicate with their communities, including promoting services and resources through marketing, public relations, and outreach initiatives. In order to thrive in a competitive environment, libraries need to market their services to the community and share the added value these services provide (Alman, 2022). Typically external marketing and outreach efforts are what is thought of when considering marketing and communication strategies. However, marketing internally which includes library staff members, stakeholders, administrators, and legislators are just as important to ensure collaboration and funding (Alman, 2022). In today’s digital environment, one of the prominent ways to market to our communities is through social media. However, simply sharing content and information in this manner is not an effective method of marketing unless it is organized in a marketing plan and often analyzed and evaluated for effectiveness. A marketing plan, built from the goals and objectives of the library’s strategic plan, is needed to guide the library and ensure a positive image is shared (Alman, 2022). Creating specific marketing goals and objectives and creating a communication and branding plan is critical to ensuring a cohesive online presence. Branding is often synonymous with an organization’s identity, so it is important to create branding guidelines and ensure all promotional materials are following these guidelines to create a well known identity in the community (Alman, 2022). Implementing an aspect of assessment and evaluation as a part of the marketing plan is essential to allow a check-in process to assess its effectiveness and have a pathway to pivot for instances with minimum success.
Advocacy
Advocacy efforts are integral to the success of a library, particularly when the library is funded primarily through the public such as taxes, academic enrollment, and grants. While it is an unseen aspect of librarianship and management, advocating for funding and strategically communicating with various stakeholders such as executive leadership, city and state officials, and community members is needed to ensure library value is presented. Public funding is typically based on a number of factors, including political decision-making (Sweeney, 2022). It is critically important for LIS professionals to understand the funding process and what affects the library’s budget in order to better advocate for more funding, particularly when money is tight. In an academic institution, the library is just one department among many fighting for limited resources. It is essential for librarians to learn the key competencies of advocacy including communication and outreach, networking skills, data analysis, data visualization, change management, and leadership skills in order to fight for library funding. The most beneficial way of achieving funding support is through communicating with community and stakeholder supporters (Sweeney, 2022). Libraries are used to working from limited funding and resources, but rather than relying on older methods of data collection to fight for funding, advocacy efforts through leadership, networking, and communication have become the more effective method (Sweeney, 2022).
Evidence
Info 204 - Organizational Analysis Part One (Planning)
My first piece of evidence is an organizational analysis for Info 204 Information Professions. This analysis was conducted on an academic library, Chaffey College. My sections of this paper include the environment scanning and criticism sections of the literature review, the funding section of the environmental scan, and the strengths section of the SWOT analysis. This paper shows the analysis and research that went into conducting an environmental scan and SWOT analysis for the beginnings of a strategic plan. This was part one of two analyses, with the second being the goals and objectives portion of the strategic plan. This paper shows my knowledge of the need for library strategic planning in order to continuously stay on top of changing community needs. This paper particularly showcases my knowledge of the effectiveness of an environmental scan and why it is important to understand the broader community demographics, needs, and trends before beginning a strategic plan.
Info 282-14 - Organizational Change in the Library Profession (Management)
My second piece of evidence is a paper written for Info 282-14 Change Management. This paper focuses on the importance of organizational change, particularly the inevitability of enacting change. In this paper I provide types of organizational changes such as restructuring the organization, adjusting workflows, and developing new policies and procedures. I outline the roles people take in change management from change initiators to change recipients. This paper shows my knowledge in management practices, particularly the process of change management and the various roles managers and LIS professionals find themselves in when a change process occurs. This paper overall shows my knowledge on the importance of change management in order to effectively change the organization to better support growing community needs.
Info 246 - Social Media Strategic Plan (Marketing)
My third piece of evidence is a recorded presentation for Info 246 Information Technology Tools and Applications - Advanced - Web 2.0 and Social Media. I presented a social media strategic plan in this presentation detailing how the College of Southern Nevada (CSN) Library could utilize the social media application, TikTok, to reach its target audience of college undergraduate students. In this presentation I discuss the demographics of the target audience and why TikTok would be the best ideal social media application to utilize to market library services and value to students. In this presentation I discuss the strategic planning process which includes a timeline for development and implementation, the training and time management process, and detailing the plan such as number of posts the responsible team will commit to. This presentation shows my knowledge of the importance of understanding your target audience to ensure proper marketing tools are utilized to reach maximum potential for showcasing the library’s value. This presentation shows my knowledge of the process of a social media strategic plan and the importance of assessment and evaluation to ensure continued effectiveness.
Info 230 - White Paper #1 (Advocacy)
My fourth piece of evidence is a white paper titled Promoting Academic Library Value at the Institutional Level. This was written for Info 230 Issues in Academic Libraries. In this paper, I discuss the importance of an academic library aligning with institutional strategic initiatives. I discuss the processes in which libraries can align with their parent organization, and more specifically showcase the library’s value at an institutional level to ensure proper funding and institutional support. This paper shows my knowledge on the importance of library advocacy, particularly when it comes to advocating for resources and funding. In this paper I discuss how LIS professionals in an academic library setting can align with institutional goals and initiatives in order to use networking and communication skills to collaborate with other departments to promote library value.
Conclusion
As a future academic librarian, it is one of my goals to advance into a leadership position with a dream goal of becoming an academic library director or dean. Organizational tools such as planning, management, marketing, and advocacy are important tools to use, even in a position of little to no authority. In my current position at CSN Libraries, I hold a leadership position in access services and a member of the marketing and assessment teams. Today and in the future I utilize my skills to ensure all aspects of these organizational tools are used to support the CSN Libraries community. As a future librarian, I plan to network and communicate with various academic stakeholders including departments, professors, and executive leadership in order to promote the library’s value and goals to ensure funding and support. I plan to participate in various professional development opportunities from local and national agencies such as the Nevada Library Association (NLA), ALA, and ACRL to stay on top of trends in these areas.
References
Alman, S. W. (2022). Communication, marketing, and outreach strategies. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services Today (3rd ed., pp. 374-387). Rowman & Littlefield
Barefoot, R. (2022). Change management. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services Today (3rd ed., pp. 271-281). Rowman & Littlefield
Moran, B. B. (2018). The new manager: What you need to know to achieve managerial success in today’s libraries. In K. Haycock & M.J. Romaniuk (Eds.), The Portable MLIS. (2nd ed., pp. 103-117). Libraries Unlimited.
Rosenblum, L. G. (2022). Strategic planning. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services Today (3rd ed., pp. 255-270). Rowman & Littlefield
Sweeney, P. (2022). Advocacy. In S. Hirsh (Ed.), Information Services Today (3rd ed., pp. 388-396). Rowman & Littlefield