The agenda for the 2013 Penn State Libraries Faculty Strategic Planning Retreat is below. The purpose of this first retreat is to get us started in identifying major themes and topics for further development.  In the next several weeks we’ll define and appoint working groups to work on those issues.

Agenda:  November 20, 2014

In advance of the retreat, attendees were asked to take some time in the next couple of days to consider the following questions:

• What do you want University Libraries to be in 5-10 years?
• Does the University Libraries’ mission statement need to be revisited to achieve what you want University Libraries to be in 5-10 years?

9:45-10:00:  Overview of the planning process

10:00-10:30:  Discussion: current assessment

1. What are the strengths of the Libraries today?
2. What can we build on for the future?
3. In 2020, what will be the ideal library?

10:30-10:45:  Break

10:45-11:35:  Discussion: looking ahead

1. In 2020, what will be the ideal library? (Discuss at tables for 15 minutes. Discuss as a group for 10 minutes.)
2. What are the challenges we will face in achieving this ideal? (Discuss at tables for 15 minutes. Discuss as a group for 10 minutes.)

11:35-12:00:  Discussion: moving forward

• What are the two most important things we need to address? (Discuss at tables for 15 minutes. Each table will write out and report two most important things to group.)

12:00-12:30:  Wrap up and time for any questions. Individuals will vote for top three “most important things” on the way to lunch.

12:30:  Lunch

Dean Barbara Dewey kicked off the Penn State Libraries CCL Faculty Retreat on November 19, 2013 with a few remarks on strategic planning.  You can read these below.

Dean Barbara Dewey’s Welcome

Faculty Retreat – Commonwealth Campus Librarian – November 20, 2013

I am so pleased to welcome you to the University Libraries Faculty Retreat. It’s always great to see you all in one place!

Our focus, this year, on strategic planning is very timely. Our new Provost is excited about the opportunity for Penn State to build on excellence and focus on distinctiveness.

Many other research libraries are working on strategic planning too and at last week’s CIC Library Director’s Meeting I heard from some of them. For example the University of Michigan’s library director stated three goals:

1. The library as place in a digital world
2. Deep Engagement and Multiple Partnerships
3. Leveraging difference

Rutgers included fostering academic strengths for distinction and heightened visibility.

Michigan State Libraries is emphasizing helping people AFTER they find the information, data, or scholarship they are seeking.

The focus of the CIC Provost’s meeting in December will be e-learning and online opportunities so stayed tuned. This is already, very much, part of Penn State’s agenda.

At a recent Academic Leadership Council meeting Deans and Chancellors were asked to provide a one minute summary of important strategic directions. The results were summarized by these points:

• 21^st Century land-grant mission – access, affordability, campuses, online, lifelong learning, equity, global
• Natural resources – coal, natural gas, water, land use, ecology, sustainability, conservation, food
• Education: Innovation in Teaching & Learning – STEM, understanding the relationship of new educational technologies to learning, student engagement, flipping the classroom, gen ed redesign
• Health – food, aging, disease prevention, health care systems
• Ethics, values and behaviors – civic engagement, child safety and protection, integrity, honor codes, equity, moral literacy
• Cyber Changes – mobile computing, big data, quantitative social sciences and analytics, risk, privacy, libraries digitization, natural sciences, education (emphasize that this “bucket” obviously involves IT, but it’s not just IT!)

We have exciting challenges ahead so let’s get started!

We will be kicking of public discussion of strategic planning at the 2013 Fall CCL/UP Faculty retreat on November 20th, 2013.  https://sites.psu.edu/librarynews/2013/11/04/how-will-the-libraries-conduct-strategic-planning/

A web presence is probably the best way to ensure that the folks in the Libraries can keep track of our work.  It seems that we need to share documents, but also news, information, possibly reports, etc.