Panel Session: Thriving in an economic downturn
All but 5 states are facing dire economic conditions.
In previous times of crisis, libraries have been collaborative and cooperative.
Steve Hiller – Eye to the future: data driven decision-making and planning in uncertain times
Measuring performance in an exercise in measuring hte pase. It is hte use of that data to plan an improved future that is all important - Peter Brophy
Strategic planning can help frame the future.
Get data from the users' perspective
organizational accountability
- What data do we need?
- what is the library's contribution to learning and reaearch
- what is the value of online resources
- user needs
- organizational performance metrics
Why we don't use data:
- don't have the right data
- don't understand the data
- aren't asked for the data
- don't know how to present the data
- difficulty using the data for positive change
Presenting Data:
- What is the message. fewer targeted messages have more impact
- Who is the audience
- How do we present: keep it simple
Budget reduction planning should look to the future. Look at documented faculty and student priorities.
gather user data to see what is most important for them
See Transformational Times [pdf file] from ARL, February 2009.
Camila Alire – Communicating through times of crisis
In Chinese, "crisis" characters include "danger" and "opportunity." There is always an opportunity our of a crisis.
In October 2008, 54% of staff (business/corporate) had received no communication from senior administrators about the economic situation at their companies, and 76% said they wanted to hear more.
Three important words:
Communicate, Communicate, Communicate. You can't communicate enough.
One has to be very cognizant of the rumor mill.
Much of the communication is top-down. Often times university counsel or insurance companies or other sources telling administrators what they can and can't say. So even though administrators may want to be transparent, there can be some limits. Though limited, there still has to be some communication. Have regular meetings and other forms of communication (open forum). Integrity must prevail.
"Under-promise and over-deliver"
Set realistic goals and time-frames.
Avoid promises.
Tom Leonard – Collaborative decision arrangements available to us
Seven ways forward
- find collaborations that are sound and perhaps forgotten (go through old files; many in paper documents)
- look for short-term gains with partners. (ARL library leaders fellows program, eg.)
- think about skills that are hard to find in your organization. Can you "train-up" people in a consortium to work together? eg. project manager.
- look for barriers that may fall when leadership changes (eg Harvard's new leader gogt faculty on board with open access)
- choice of sustainable model or leaving money on the table, choose the former;
- sometimes we can fail in fruitful ways; what can we learn from failures?
- take full credit for previous investments that are now paying dividends (digitization as example)
Data
Communicate
Collaborate
With these three words, we can thrive in an economic downturn!
Posts
