Prior to our current Strategic Plan, branch libraries were organized thematically, with each having an identified focus — Children and Family, Language and Learning. This organization proved to be a successful method of delivering consistent, quality services for their focuses, but we learned that the branch service areas weren’t neatly defined solely by the focus area of the branches. For example, a branch identified as Children and Family might have a large pocket of single younger adults and another pocket of immigrants and refugees, and a focus on Children and Family didn’t effectively serve the needs of these communities.

The new Strategic Process is an attempt to keep the quality and consistency of services we deliver through our Priorities, while offering branches flexibility to deliver quality programming to as much of their community as possible. Each of the Service Priorities — Early Learning, Out of School Learning, Technology Access/Training, Adult Programming, and Services to Immigrants and Refugees — has a team driving the service, and creates a “Menu of Opportunities”, defining programming that can be offered under that Service Priority along with anticipated staffing and hard dollar resources needed to deliver the service and success measures for the activity.

The anticipated outcome of the Service Planning Workshops is to ensure that the services comprised by the Library’s Service Priorities are implemented effectively and appropriately across the system. The Workshops empowered staff to make data-driven decisions for their communities and gained a more holistic view of their branch’s services and operations. The format of having quick and informed conversations allowed for dialogue between Leads and Senior Librarians. Also, we are able to estimate hard dollars and staff time allocated to each of our Priorities. The whole process was shared with all staff and will be evaluating the process this October.