ACRL News Issue (B) of College & Research Libraries 292 / C &RL News The A CRL Professional Association Liaison Com mittee invites proposals for funding and uses the following guidelines for distribution of financial support. C riteria: 1. Support for participation in organizations could include activities such as major presenta tions, panel discussions, poster sessions, publica tions of articles and more. In awarding the funding request, the committee will give weight to the sig nificance of the contribution. 2. Preference will be given to efforts which con tribute to the understanding or use of academic li brary resources or services. Also eligible for fund ing are efforts which enhance the perception of academ ic librarians as part of “the education team .” 3. Must be an ALA member, with preference given to A CRL members. 4. Adequate documentation must be provided and should include all points listed in the format suggested below. M ethods: 1. Funding will be up to $300 of costs not cov ered by others for travel, accommodations, and registration (not membership). 2. There is no limit on the number of grants that may be awarded to an individual. 3. Funding will be awarded after the event, but requests may be submitted for approval prior to the event. Awards are dependent on the committee re ceiving a report of activity. 4. The committee may request information suit able for publication within six months after the event. 5. The committee meets twice a year to review applications: at ALA Midwinter and Annual Meet ings. Please send applications to: Jacquelyn M. Mor ris, Chair, ACRL Professional Association Liaison Committee, Mary Norton Clapp Library, O cci dental College, 1600 Campus Road, Los Angeles, CA 90041. Strategic planning for ACRL By the ACRL Planning Committee Carolyn Dusenbury, C hair The annual report of ACRL's Planning Committee. T his is the first of a series of annual Strategic Planning reports to the ACRL membership. Be cause the planning process is still relatively new to the Association, this report provides an overview the A CRL Strategic Plan, describes briefly how the planning process operates, and attempts to answer some of the most frequently asked questions. Overview The A CRL Strategic Plan is the result of six years of work by two ACRL task forces, the Task Force on an Activity Model for the 1990’s (1980-1982) and th e S tra te g ic P la n n in g T ask F o rc e (1 9 8 4 -1 9 8 6 ). To aid in the development of the plan, a large-scale needs assessment was conducted by mail and the plan was the focus of the 1985 An nual Membership meeting. Membership involve ment was crucial in establishing both the directions and goals of ACRL. The Strategic Plan consists of several parts: a mission statement, four broad goals (e.g., “To con tribute to the total professional development of ac­ ademic and research librarians”) ‚ with subgoals for each goal (e.g., “To sponsor and encourage oppor tunities fo r ...librarians to update existing compe­ May 1988 / 293 tencies, learn requisite new skills, and gain aware ness of the state-of-the-art”) . Specific objectives are enumerated under each subgoal, and strategies are developed over a 3-year period to accomplish obje ctives. The plan also indicates which units are in volved in activities that contribute toward accom plishment of the objectives, and identifies any resources that are necessary to meet them. The Strategic Plan is an ongoing process. It is never finished, because the work of the Association is never finished; as the needs of the membership change and the environment in which they work evolves, the plan is updated to reflect new priorities and changing situations. At the end of each year, the first year of the 3-year cycle is replaced with an updated plan for the second year, and a third year is added in a continuous cycle. Because the four goals are broad, overall direc tions for the Association, almost all of the ongoing activities of A CRL chapters, committees, sections and other units are reflected in the broad frame work of the goals and subgoals. Most of the changes that will occur in the plan are seen in the objectives and strategies that are developed. The planning process The planning process is designed to encourage input from all levels within the Association. The ACRL Board of Directors is responsible for setting annual priorities. The Planning Committee is re sponsible for monitoring and extending the plan by using all of the information they gather from the Association and through biennial environmental scans and membership needs assessments. The membership plays a major role in the design and content of the Strategic Plan. As part of the an nual planning review and updating process, the Planning Com m ittee asks each A CRL standing committee, section, and task force to review its ac tivities and fill out a strategic planning inventory. This information enables the Planning Committee to monitor the plan for current activities that con tribute to the goals and to extend the plan into the future. The inventory also identifies areas or activi ties that are not included in the current plan and need to be added to it so that the plan is responsive to changing m em ber needs. Chapters are also asked to review their activities and identify unmet needs, and individual members are invited to com municate with the Planning Committee with their thoughts and concerns. All of this information is vi tal to the Planning Process. One of the products of the planning process is the Annual Operating Plan, which is produced by A CRL staff using the priorities set by the President and the Board of Directors, the inventories submit ted by units, reports from chapters, and the staffs knowledge of ongoing Association commitments, such as national conferences. The Operating Plan includes anticipated activities of ACRL units, de tails of the ACRL budget and the Executive Direc tor’s overview of the year being planned. The Op­ e ra tin g P lan is review ed by th e P la n n in g Committee and presented to the Board of Directors for final approval. Planning concerns In discussions with units and members, the Plan ning Committee members have heard a few con cerns more than a few times. A few points of clarifi­ cation may be helpful. Since the Strategic Plan was ad op ted , all w e ever h ear is plan‚ plan, plan. Are w e just planning to plan, or w ill w e ever see any results? Because the process is less than two years old and represents a genuine change for A CRL, no one has the temerity to suggest that the Strategic Plan is a well-oiled machine. The plan is new to everyone and subject to some trial and, probably, some er ror. This is not unique to the ACRL plan. Experi­ ence with strategic planning in libraries and other organizations suggests that, at first, planning seems to be just another job to add to an already long list. But once the process is understood and absorbed into ongoing activities, it forms a framework in which to operate— rather than an obstacle to climb over before anything else can get done. The Plan ning Committee is actually aware of the need to minimize redundant or unnecessary bureaucracy, and as the process develops, will continue to wel come suggestions for improvement. Some of the activities that have already resulted from the planning process include: 1) an assess ment of membership needs for continuing educa tion (see C &R L News, April 1987, p. 196, for the results); 2) the establishment in 1987 of an ACRL task force on awards; and 3) the publication of an output measures manual, currently in preparation by a professional consultant. D oes the plan a ffe c t the ability o f A C R L units to set their ow n agendas? No. The plan is designed to be sufficiently broad to encompass the interests expressed by the mem bership. Reports from units will enable the Associ­ ation to demonstrate the many ways that unit ac tiv itie s m eet th e o b jectiv e s of th e p lan . Occasionally when new priorities are set, units may be asked by the Board of Directors to under take a task to address these priorities; but it will be a request that will involve negotiation with the unit and will include a provision for increasing the re sources needed by the unit to accomplish the task. New task forces will also be established to work on some of the tasks, thus providing a chance for in creased participation by A CRL members. W ill A C R L fu n d projects that are not in the Stra tegic Plan? Again, in most cases there is a place in the plan for all requests for resources. If this is not the case, there is a good chance that the plan needs to be re viewed to reflect legitimate new ideas. The plan is designed to change and expected to do so. Requests that challenge the plan will be one of the primary ways of keeping the plan moving ahead. 294 / C &RL News H ow w ill I have the opportunity to com m en t on th e Strategic Plan? In subsequent annual reports of this committee, the membership will be informed of the specific priorities identified by the Board, which objectives have been accomplished and what new objectives have been added. Members will be invited to com municate with the Planning Committee regarding the progress of the Strategic Plan. This, along with the feedback from chapters, committees, sections, and other units should provide all interested mem bers with an opportunity to be involved with the overall direction of ACRL. If you would like a copy of the Strategic Plan, please contact the A CRL office. If you would like to comment on the plan, contact any member of the Planning Committee or the ACRL office and they will forward your comments to the chair of the Planning Committee. Guidelines fo r conservators an d cu ra to rs: D raft III P rep ared by the RBMS Ad Hoc Conservators’ Collations Committee Terry Belanger, C hair Collations and marking in special collections. T h e Ad Hoc Conservators’ Collations Commit tee charge was to study the current use of colla- tional formulae by conservators and curators, and (if it thought it wise to do so) to produce guidelines encouraging the joint, standardized use of such for mulae by conservators and curators. The story so far The Com m ittee was formed by action of the RBMS Executive Committee at Annual Confer ence 1984 (Dallas). It had its first meeting at Mid winter 1985 (Washington, D .C .). Members were formally appointed to the Committee in the spring of 1985 by the then chair of the Section, Lynda Corey Claassen (San Diego). At the July 1985 An nual Conference (Chicago), Committee members discussed the first draft of questionnaires to be sent out to conservators and curators, and at Midwinter 1986 (Chicago) the Committee approved the text of these questionnaires, which were sent out in the spring of 1986 to 54 conservators and to about 60 curators. The heavy response was read by the Committee at Annual Conference 1986 (New York), and the chair of the committee was directed to prepare draft guidelines. The first draft of these guidelines was discussed at Annual Conference 1987 (San Francisco), and the chair was directed to prepare a second draft of the guidelines for further discussion at Midwinter 1988 (San Antonio). Further revi sions were made at this meeting, and a final version approved for transmission to the RBMS Standards Committee. This final version is given here. Recommendations 1. C uratorial collations. Curators should rou tinely collate books, or make copies from depart ment records of previously done collations, before sending them away for treatment, and a copy of these collational statements should accompany the material being sent.