Chaired by: W. David Penniman

President [at the time of NIT '94]
Council on Library Resources
Washington, DC 20036, USA
dpenn@cni.org

This afternoon's panel is on Information Infrastructure -- International Scene. I am Dave Penniman. We shall begin with Don Riggs of the University of Michigan.

[Don Riggs]

Good afternoon ladies and gentleman.
 

5_______________________

PANEL ON INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURE - INTERNATIONAL SCENE

DEVELOPING A STRATEGIC PLAN FOR THE GLOBAL LIBRARY

Donald E. Riggs

Dean, University Library
University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1205, USA
driggs@umich.edu

The Clinton Administration included its vision of a futuristic information age highway on the agenda of the seven major industrial democracies whose leaders met in Naples in July 1994. Within a year after the July economic summit, the Group of Seven (G-7) leaders are expected to hold a telecommunications conference, centering on lowering regulatory and technological barriers to a global free flow of information. Notwithstanding the various similarities in their economies, the G-7 nations are far from agreeing on how to handle telecommunications and broadcasting policies. There are other vexing problems such as national security issues. In March 1994, at the meeting of the International Telecommunications Union in Buenos Aires, Vice President Gore described the goal of a "planetary information network" connecting the world's largest cities and smallest villages. These are only a couple examples of early planning for the global network.

"Any information, at any place, in any format" is becoming a reality. The capture, manipulation, transmission, and consumption of information in digital form has become a critical function in our civilization. In short, the Information Revolution is reaching a critical mass. At its core is the accelerating shift from material information media -- including paper, photographic film, videotape, and modeling clay -- to computer-based simulations of those media. By no means are paper or books or libraries going to disappear completely. Their traditional presence and significance in our culture, and the degree to which they have informed our concepts of self, identity, and consciousness, seem poised to fade as seem-ingly cheaper, less polluting, more flexible, and more attention-grabbing digital media come to the fore (Verity, 1994).

Unquestionably, the globalization of knowledge has arrived. The world has never seen anything like the computer. It is by far the most powerful tool ever for recording and communicating representations of human knowledge in coded or symbolic form. In sum, it is a universal manipulator of symbols.

Technology has made it possible for us to share information among many parts of the world. If we can realize the "universal service dream," access to information will be equalized throughout the world. Regrettably, we are far from universal access. There are many barriers that we have to overcome before we can claim access from and to anywhere (ubiquitous).

As we gallop ahead with improving the human condition by enhancing international access, there does not appear to be much effort in bringing the activities together in a systematic, coherent plan. Bits and pieces are addressed in various ways. Nevertheless, if we do not begin planning soon, the right hand will not know what the left hand is doing. Duplicate efforts will occur, valuable resources will be expended unwisely, and the mess will get messier.

The global library should not be left to happen by default. For the purpose of this chapter, the global library is defined as a single library concept serving the world -- a library designed to serve via sophisticated technologies other libraries throughout the world.

Planning for the global library should engage the principles of strategic plan-ning. The components of the plan should include the establishment of a set of assumptions, a list of values, a planning to plan process, a recognition of who the planners will be, development of vision and mission statements, identification of broad-range goals and specific objectives, formulation of strategies, and an evaluation process.

ASSUMPTIONS

The assumptions component of the planning process should focus on where the global library is expected to be in 5 to 10 years. For example, some obvious assumptions would include:

Values are generally defined as ideals, customs, and things we believe in and entrust. For example, values would include:

Strategic planning is a complex endeavor and requires much preparation and thorough implementation. The planning to plan process involves four basic questions:

This is a complex question to answer; however, a carefully selected group of individuals should be brought together to commence developing the strategic plan for the global library. Should IFLA take the lead in the planning endeavor? Should the Internet Society participate as one of the principal planners? These and other thought-provoking questions could be discussed by a steering commit-tee. A broad representation from various countries is necessary for an effective and informed strategic-planning committee.

VISION AND MISSION STATEMENTS

Both of these statements are broad "umbrella" types of statements. The vision statement should truly be visionary and should project out about 10 years hence. The mission statement is normally not more than 25 words in length and tends to describe the type of business in which an organization is engaged.

BROAD-RANGE GOALS

A goal is a broad or general statement or desired or intended accomplishment. Its scope is broad and unspecific and is usually longterm in nature (e.g., 5 years). Initially, establishing goals for the global library should not be difficult. There are many directional goals, for example, to be addressed.

SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES

Unlike goals, objectives are specific and stated as a particular result that will be accomplished by a specific date. Objectives are more focused than goals and they a resource commitment. They should be purposeful, shorttermed, consistent with goals, linked to other objectives, precise, measurable, verifiable, understandable, and flexible.

STRATEGY FORMULATION

The most important part of strategic planning is the formulation of strategies (i.e., courses of action to achieve goals and objectives). Strategy will be a major key in the success of the global library. Every strategy has to be consciously design-ed and regularly assessed. Strategy cannot take place as a matter of course and should not cause the global library to respond/react and be constantly on the defensive.

Examples of strategies include:

• organizational strategies

• personnel strategies

• growth strategies

• opportunistic strategies

• innovation strategies

• retrenchment strategies.

The effectiveness of strategies can be gauged by the following six criteria:

• internal consistency

• consistency with the external environment

• appropriateness in view of resources

• acceptable degree of risk

• appropriate timetable.

EVALUATION

On a regular basis the global library's strategic plan should be evaluated. Ques-tions such as "What went right?" and "What went wrong?" should be asked. The strategic plan is never completed; it is imperfect, evolving, and must be updated on a regular basis. Objectives and strategies achieved in a given year should be deleted from the plan and new ones should be added to tit. Strategies may be treated as substrategies, and they may be merged with existing strategies.

EMERGING FACTORS THAT REENFORCED THE IMPLEMENTATION OF A STRATEGIC PLANNING PROCESS FOR THE GLOBAL LIBRARY

Factors that are important for implementing a strategic planning process include:

Q & A_________________

DISCUSSIONS
 
 

[David Penniman]

We shall have 10 minutes for questions and discussion. Is there anyone who would like to challenge or comment on what Don has said?

[Pam Andre]

I am interested to see that the University of Michigan has gone through a strategic planning process. We at the National Agricultural Library have gone through a similar process. The first thing we did is not only the mission and vision, but also the statement of organizational values. Now, I did not see "value" on your list, would you like to comment on that?

[Don Riggs]

Yes, value is something which we believe in. We believe in intellectual freedom, we believe in access, and things of that nature. At the University of Michi-gan, we have a full page of values.

[A. Neelameghan]

You mentioned global library. Perhaps you actually mean global access to information rather than a global library.

[Don Riggs]

I actually mean global library. I think libraries need to do much much more to have collective and coordinated collection management and development. A system needs to be devised whereby a library in Hong Kong, for example, needs a publication from the University of Michigan, instead of interlibrary loan, we have the responsibility to develop that interface and to deliver that publication.

[Richard Hsieh]

I do recognize that the National Library of Medicine [NLM] has been commented on by previous speakers. I might point out that the NLM is one of the three U.S. national libraries. NLM is a specialized library serving primarily users of biomedical information. There are more than 3,000 medical libraries connected to NLM into a national network of medical libraries. The network divides the country into eight regions, and each region has a regional library with several resource libraries. These libraries are connected together for interlibrary loans by using a NLM system called DOCLINE.

There is a separate NLM system called LOANSOME DOC through which a health professional connects PC to her or his primary library of access, which in turn connects to other libraries and NLM for the access of needed documents.

[David Penniman]

Is there anybody who wants to raise the topic of fair use in an environment where libraries have to coordinate fair use of information more so than in the past? No?

[Don Riggs]

The NLM is a very good national mode.

[Marjorie Hlava]

I notice, Don, in your examples of the research library draft, you talked quite a bit with interlibrary loans and document delivery, and the objectives also include the assurance of protective use of fair use and copyright.... I did not know of the joint collaboration with the Copyright Clearance Center. How do you propose to address that?

[Don Riggs]

At Michigan we have strong cooperation among the research libraries in Michigan and keep every record for fair use tracking. We did not have any misuse of copyright law.

[David Penniman]

We shall move on to the next speaker and leave plenty of time for interaction.

[Marjorie Hlava]

In all fairness, you may want to inform the group of the piece which you wrote on fair use and the expenses involved.

[David Penniman]

I wrote a piece a while back in our Council Newsletter (Council on Library Resources) in which I pointed out that there is expense involved in fair use, and I believe that it has all been supported and paid for by those people who paid for the subscriptions to the publications that exist in the libraries. So, there is a hidden cost, but it is supported already. Maybe it is necessary to make that cost explicit so that people understand how much they really paid in order to support fair use. Thank you. We now move on to Yakov Shraiberg of the Russian National Public Library of Science and Technology.