Southern Ontario Library Service

Essential Planning Services

SOLS provides an array of services and resources to assist library boards and staff in thinking and acting strategically to improve and develop library services in response to community characteristics and public demand.

The Essential Planning process was designed by SOLS consultants, based on years of experience assisting public libraries with various planning efforts. It focuses on the need for board and staff to enter into strategic conversation as the best way to arrive at a collective understanding of the library’s essence, where it is right now, where it should be, and what it needs to do to get from here to there. Essential Planning is a scale-able planning approach that can be made appropriate for the small town library, the county library with geographically dispersed rural branches, and the thriving urban library system. It recognizes that planning is an essential board and staff responsibility, but also recognizes that it represents work that is in addition to the ongoing governance and operational work required for the provision of library service. The Essential Planning approach was designed to be a manageable, plausible undertaking so that all boards and staff will choose to engage in the essential work of planning for library service.

Information and Advice - SOLS offers assistance through consultations, presentations, orientation sessions, ongoing guidance and advice, facilitation, and training related to various aspects of planning and service assessment.

Specialized Assistance - SOLS consultants are available to work with individual libraries in a number of ways, on a fee basis. See Consulting Fees. These could include:

• Developing and delivering a customized workshop designed to summarize the library’s current situation (results of Situational Analysis)
• Advising libraries on means of public consultation
• Planning and facilitating a board/staff visioning session
• Guiding the Board through the process of identifying 3-5 strategic directions
• Customizing and delivering a workshop on writing the plan and utilizing the plan as a communications strategy

Resource Materials - SOLS has published a comprehensive guide to the planning process for public libraries. Written for public library staff and trustees, Creating the Future You’ve Imagined: A Guide to Essential Planning brings together an overview of the planning process with helpful tools for undertaking various aspects of the work related to planning. The Guide is organized into the following sections:

1. An Introduction to Essential Planning
2. Understanding Group Process and Conversation
3. An Overview of the Essential Planning Process (.pdf)
4. The Work of Conducting a Situational Analysis
5. Imagining a Compelling Vision of the Library’s Future
6. Identifying the Strategic Directions that will Achieve the Vision
7. Building the Plan by Establishing Objectives and Tasks for Each Strategic Direction
8. Writing the Plan, Highlighting the New Activities
9. Using the Plan to Achieve the Future You’ve Imagined (.pdf)

There are 18 appendices: 

1. Board Readiness Checklist
2. Sample Timeline
3. Library Profile Worksheet
4. Sample Staff Survey(.pdf)
5. Assembling and Conducting Focus Groups for User Feedback
6. Sample In-House User Survey
7. Demographic Worksheet
8. Hosting a Community Forum
9. Community Information Checkpoint
10. 6 Ways to Describe Your Community (.pdf)
11. Current Trends in Ontario Public Libraries
12. Recent Headlines from Environmental Scanning
13. Articulating Your Mission without a Facilitator
14. Group Process for Naming Organizational Values
15. Sample Vision Statements
16. Active, Strategic Verbs
17. Test Your Plan Checklist(.pdf)
18. A Sample Implementation Tool
    

A copy of Creating the Future You've Imagined has been distributed to every public library in Ontario at no cost. The guide is also available for purchase via the Publications Order Form section of the SOLS website.

Contact Library Development Consultant Anne Marie Madziak at: