If you’ve ever heard the term strategic planning, you may cringe when you start this article. But let me take a moment to allay your discomfort. ICL is working on our strategic plan for the next few years. And we’re doing it in a different way than we’ve done before.                                                                                             

At one time in the past, strategic plans were long, involved documents detailing plans and goals for every aspect of an organization. They tended to be cumbersome, long winded and often not particularly useful. More recently, strategic planning efforts have involved community meetings, surveys and often only reflected the thoughts of the folks who were actively involved with that organization. “Stakeholders” were relied on to supply information and direction, and, while their input is often valuable it still distances the organization from the people that we’re trying to serve.  

This time around we’re trying out another option. We’re going to people where they work or live or asking them to stop by the library and visit with us. We have a simple interview process, limited to a few short questions focusing more on the community and less on the library. After all, it’s not the community’s job to determine what the library can or should offer. It’s our job to find out what the community needs and wants and determine what aspects of that we can provide. By the end of this process, we hope to have four to six goals that we can work on over the next few years that will improve our service to Ignacio and the surrounding community and help us to better meet the needs of our citizens.  

So far, we’ve conducted about a dozen interviews and let me say, they’ve been enlightening. Folks have shared their thoughts on what a perfect community would look like, what challenges and needs are facing Ignacio right now, and how they view the library’s role in the community.  

While I can’t say I was eagerly anticipating this process before we started, I can truly say that I’m enjoying meeting with people and hearing their thoughts and stories about this wonderful corner of the world.  

If you’ve been contacted to help us with strategic planning, yay! If not and you would be interested in offering your input, please get in touch: 970-563-9287 or email Marcia at mvining@ignaciolibrary.org. We want to hear from everyone! And yes, that means you, too.