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Each stakeholder should have a role in the planning phase of the library because they are all involved in the functioning of the library. Budget, service, and use. Based on our community scan the older population should be focused on, however everyone should be included in the planning phase as everyone has access to the library. These older adults where a factor when we completed our long-range plans which involved in-house and online questionnaires as well as small focus groups.

The library director should provide background information and resources, as well as compiling the results of the meetings and keeping information flowing between the different groups. The director's main goal should be to put their thoughts and opinions to the side and listen to what the community has to say. They are also responsible for creating objectives and activities to support the service responses and then supervising the implementation of the selected service responses.

The library trustees serve to authorize the choices made by the planning committee. They can have ideas about what they want to happen with the library but they should also be willing to shelve their personal goals based on public input. The trustees have a better idea of what resources the library actually has and can help determine if community selected service responses are reasonable or not (as in the example mentioned in class of the library that decided it couldn't be a commons because of inadequate meeting room space and parking).

Library staff need to be involved so that they don't feel like they are being stuck with mandates coming down from on high, this process will also help them to know what the community is looking for. As front line workers, they will be responsible for implementing the results of this process.

The community provides the vision of how the library can become an integral part of making the community the best it can be. They are also responsible for letting the library leadership (director and trustees) what they want. Library leaders can only try and meet those needs that they know about.

Based on my community survey, there are three critical groups of people to have on the planning committee, someone representing business interests, someone representing the city government and someone representing the school system. Beyond this, we probably need a representative of the senior community, the tourism industry, the art center and either the historical society or the genealogy society. I would also like to get three parents on the committee representing grade school, middle school and high school aged children (or one parent with all three of these ages currently in the school system).

Session 14 web board questions
What role should each stakeholder (director, staff, trustees, community) plaly in the planning process and why?
The director is there all the time and can see what could change and what might work. The Board needs to be informed of the need so they can discuss this and if in agreement, then can act on it. The community can then be let know by phone, word of mouth, or
the town paper if we need their help in any way. When we have asked for their help they have readily been there for us.

Erna good thought on the town paper. Our town paper does a good job of promoting the Library too when we need it. Carolyn

The Director should take the lead and begin the process, setting the committee with the trustees suggestions, bringing in the community as committee members. Staff must be an intregal part of the planning as they will be part of the instigation of the plan and the carry through. I think the comittee should be the engineers of the planning committee, with one member as the facilitator. Our trusteed came up with several names of community people who would be great serving on the planning committee. The older patrons are a focus group who should be involved, as well as the young adults. these two groups will be crucial to the well written plan.

The director should do the back ground work so the committe has all the resources it will need to plan. A community leader might be a good person to lead the committe because people might listen to what they have to say. The trustees need to be involved because ultimatly the board will approve the plan.
The community members I might ask to join a committe might be a city council member, a business owner, a church reprsenative, a rural parton, a city patron, 4-H member, a boy scout leader, and a member of our Hispanic community. We are a small community so it might be difficult to find people to serve on the committe.

Each "stakeholder" should be able to offer a little of different perspective based on their role. A Director may be focused one particular area such as budgeting, a staff person may be focused on how to deal with the community or have opinions on what should be offered in the library - not worrying about budget; a trustee may be simply concerned with following all of the necessary laws, codes, etc. required by the city council and then the community may have no opinion or interest in any of the mentioned areas that all library personnell thought was important. You have to have everyone's thoughts/ideas to have a balanced plan. For our library, I have discovered we need to focus on those around the age of 46 - that is the average age of our town of 840! That was a shock for my eyes and mind to comprehend!

Community input should be the basis of our planning process. That being said I don't think that is how it has happened in the past. I know our director has done community surveys and considers the responses when she wrote a long range plan, but nothing as involved as we talked about in class.
We need to update our long range plan now and I think it would be great if we could get some community members to give us some input on what they want from the library. Our community has all age groups, but tends to have an aging population. We seem to focus on childrens needs quite well and it would be nice to see what the older members of our community want from the library.
Once we get community input , I think it is important for the director, staff and board to work together to come up with ideas that will satisfy the needs of the community.

We also are a small community, and you almost hesitate to ask people to serve on one more committee because it's the same people who will say yes, and unfortunately, they are in the minority. After awhile you get so burned out from attending meetings, you want to quit everything. I can't see us forming a committee to put together a long-range plan like was talked about in class. I think the best I could expect is maybe some imput from my board.

I think it should start with the community. Knowing your community's history, family demographics, special interests and what they will need from the library in the future. Then the trustees would need to organize this information to fit what is able to be accomplished for the community within the budget and amount of staff. The staff and director would need to implement and maintain the plans.

Within our community's demographics, a three to five year long-range plan would need to involve the families with school age children. This is a big part of our town right now and it's also the big part of our town who isn't using the library. It make me ask what it is they need that we aren't providing?