Our Vision for the Future: Strategic Plan 2018 – 2021
As the most recent Strategic Plan neared the end of its utility, it sparked conversations to begin the process of creating a visionary multiple-year plan to help guide the Library’s and Learning Commons’ course into the future. The most recent approved Plan is “Engage, Enrich, Enable: Strategic Directions for A.A. Lemieux Library, 2008-2012. Following the retirement of the University Librarian in 2016, interim leadership coordinated the development of a new Plan; “Draft 8: Lemieux Library Strategic Plan 2013” reflects early efforts to update the 2008-2012 Plan. The arrival of a new Dean In August 2017 provided impetus to restart the planning process.
Formed in mid-fall 2017, a Strategic Planning Team began its work by taking a deeper look at the latest draft of the Plan, and considering what 2013 goals and strategic areas, objectives and initiatives still resonate. The Team was also charged with thinking about possible new goals and strategic areas and new objectives and initiatives to assure the Library’s continued relevancy and value. The Team did not revisit mission and values, focusing instead on strategic directions and enabling strategies.
Library and Learning Commons’ divisions and functional groups will build out internal objectives and key performance indicators. Mapping departmental initiatives to emerging strategic directions and strategies is key to the Plan’s continuing relevance and impact. We will document progress on our website, enabling students, faculty and staff as well as other SU stakeholders to track our progress.
The new strategic plan is a bold, forward thinking strategy focusing on the Library’s evolving role, impact on the student experience, student retention and success, and our growth as an adaptive learning organization.
We are committed to building a plan that advances inclusivity, equity, and diversity, as these priorities are vital to our future success. The development of internal objectives and metrics will demonstrate this commitment. Our Plan is intended to be a working document. We will adapt strategic directions and enabling strategies to align with the University’s evolving strategic plan.
A strategic plan is ultimately a statement of how an organization will use its finite resources to accomplish its mission. It can be viewed as a sustainability document. In our context, the Library recognizes that we think of sustainability both environmentally and economically. We are committed to practices that are environmentally sustainable and that utilize our limited financial, physical and personnel resources in scalable and sustainable ways to achieve our strategic directions.
Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons is guided by our vision and mission. These tell our constituents who we are and serve as the foundation for planning and action across the Library:
As the premier independent academic library in the Pacific Northwest and as the intellectual and educational core of a vibrant academic community, the library is:
A place and a presence
A repository and an active learning space
Tangible and digital
Traditional and transformative
Responsive to change and a change agent
Distinctive in character & role, and
Fully engaged with the achievement of Seattle University’s mission.
The cumulative impact of our facilities, technologies, resources, and services:
Engages the community in a full expression of teaching, learning, scholarship, and research.
Enriches the individual and collaborative intellectual processes and personal experiences of exploration and discovery as part of the search for truth.
Enables in each student an active, lifelong ability to confront ideas, to master knowledge, and to learn continuously.
With our Learning Commons Partnership, we offer a unique environment in which our students succeed in their academic programs and develop the attitudes and skills for a lifetime of intellectual vigor and continuous learning.
The mission for Lemieux Library and McGoldrick Learning Commons
Lemieux Library integrates comprehensive collections, flexible and personalized services, innovative instructional programs, collaborative relationships, and enabling technologies – operating in, and accessible through, the physical and the digital environments – to make a powerful impact on the educational and scholarly processes of inquiry, discovery, teaching, and learning for the Seattle University academic community.
In collaboration with our Learning Commons Partners, we honor our rich, individual contributions to student learning, we forge new relationships, and we design new services that respond effectively to the changing needs and expectations of Seattle University’s diverse community of students.
The Plan is organized in three (3) tiers - Strategic Directions represent the broad areas that capture what we’re about and what inspires us; these are accompanied by brief narrative that further describes our commitment to the Strategic Direction; Strategies for fulfilling these directions; and Metrics – standards or measures that will help us gauge our progress. Library divisions, functional groups and teams will develop internal plans and additional metrics that map strategies to their work.
We will ensure the sustained value of the Library as a primary content provider for Seattle University, and as a leader in advancing knowledge within the region. Through the information resources we provide, we will invite and facilitate intellectual engagement, interdisciplinary inquiry, and critical assessment.
Be a leader and partner in creating and implementing ideas and initiatives that advance teaching, learning and research in service to the University’s mission.
→ Find and create opportunities for partnership, outreach and collaboration with faculty to promote library resources and services, to support student learning outcomes, and to deepen and align information literacy instruction with the University curricula.
→ Establish and develop nontraditional and co-curricular partnerships across campus and in our local community to strengthen library visibility, relevance and reach.
→ Create, maintain, and promote a unified and distinguished digital repository of institutional assets to enhance the reputation of the University and to support and disseminate users’ research and scholarship.
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We will purposefully and radically enhance the discovery, access, and use of information. We will creatively and effectively steward and leverage our resources to further develop a collaborative learning environment on campus and online and provide high quality resources to support and empower teaching and learning.
Enhance the Library and Learning Commons experience through transformed Library services and spaces, both physical and virtual.
→ Create positive experiences that respond to our students, faculty, staff and other users’ habits and needs.
→ Design services that are human-centered, usable, and collaborative, and that derive from our understanding of the intrinsic components of the service experience.
→ Enhance our physical and virtual resources and tools for the facilitation of knowledge creation.
→ Reimagine the library’s physical presence to enhance and increase the number of open, inviting, responsive, and accessible spaces.
→ Improve the usability of the library’s virtual presence for accessing and highlighting our resources, services and events.
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We will encourage academic engagement by supporting undergraduate and graduate students holistically in their personal and professional development, and by teaching students to thrive in an information-rich society and to develop transferable skills for lifelong learning.
Ensure student retention and success.
→ Promote and further develop Library and Learning Commons’ services that directly contribute to student retention, inclusion, and the college-to-career experience.
→ Develop and build upon partnerships with student services across the University.
→ Provide targeted, personalized outreach and services to student groups and organizations, with especial attention to constituent groups who have disproportionately experienced exclusionary conduct as cited in the Campus Climate Study Final Report and the Task Force on Diversity and Inclusive Excellence Final Report.
→ Leverage Library and Learning Commons’ resources and spaces to support and showcase student research and achievements.
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The University’s location, mission, presence, space and intellectual capital position it to promote and uniquely contribute to inquiry, discovery, scholarship, and real world contributions. We will develop and leverage communications and outreach to effectively tell our story and strengthen our contributions to the University’s mission. We will engage with other academic and public libraries, organizations and diverse communities across Seattle and throughout the Pacific Northwest to advance access to information resources and improve services for our students, faculty and staff.
Intentionally build community and cultivate relationships within the broader higher education and information technology environs in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest.
→ Host events and explore services that will invite new visitors, partners and/or neighbors into our community.
→ Leverage or further develop partnerships with area academic and public libraries, cultural institutions, and information technology businesses and providers for the benefit of our users.
→ Actively participate in regional and specialized library consortia strategic planning, teams, and working groups, to ensure the University’s voice and visibility in programs and initiatives.
→ With community, regional and academic partners, promote and celebrate special collections and primary sources relating to Seattle and Pacific Northwest.
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Essential to our continued success is the development of a culture characterized by a commitment to excellence and continuous learning on the part of our staff and student workers. We will actively engage in building our own competency. We will recruit, strengthen and retain outstanding staff who contribute to an increasingly vibrant, academically distinguished, and diverse University. Together we will build and sustain a culture that enables a skilled and engaged work force to thrive in an ever-changing environment, with increased emphasis on collaboration, assessment, efficiency, and continuous improvement. We will tackle how our organizational structure contributes to, and limits, effective organizational decision-making.
Grow as an adaptive learning organization.
→ Recruit, develop and support an engaged and diverse workforce, whose priorities, opportunities and advancement paths align with the University’s mission and the Library’s strategic directions.
→ Develop Library staff through targeted training and talent development opportunities, and the implementation of a formal mentorship program.
→ Address challenges with Library workplace climate by building a strong organizational culture based on shared strategic priorities, agility, collaboration, innovation, communication, efficiency and mutual respect.
→ Review and address the role cultural and structural dynamics play in our capacity for effective decision-making.
→ Build and sustain a library-wide program of assessment, focusing on user-centered needs to inform decisions on collections, services and operations.