College and Research Libraries Guest Editorial Reshaping ACRL Like all good membership organiza- tions, ACRL used some of its energies in the 1980s to develop a mission statement, goals, and objectives and to form a five- year strategic plan, focusing on both the needs of the membership and the critical issues of the times. This plan, implemented in 1987, was not replaced immediately by a successor in 1992. Rather the leadership of the association has been working to carefully study ACRL's membership needs, and the changes in the environment within which we operate, to restate the ACRL mission, and to identify a vision and set goals for the organization. At the recent American Library Asso- ciation (ALA) Midwinter Meeting in Philadelphia, a new mission statement, vision, and goals were presented in draft form to the ACRL Board by the Interim Planning Committee. With the sugges- tions from that discussion, the commit- tee will continue its work at the National Conference in Pittsburgh, and expects to present a completed set of statements to the Board of Directors for ratification at the Annual Conference in June. Because this process and its results are so important for the membership of ACRL, I want to describe briefly the level of involvement of the membership, the techniques that have been used to gather information and feedback from ACRL members and leaders, and to give you a sense of the documents as they currently stand. For an afternoon prior to .each confer- ence of the ALA, since Midwinter 1993, ACRL has held a Leadership Planning Session. The participants at these meet- ings are the Board of Directors, the elected officers of sections, divisional committee chairs, Chapters' Council chair and vice-chair, Budget and Finance Committee members, and Planning Committee members. In addition tore- sponding to the membership survey of 1992 (a sample-not the entire member- ship-was surveyed), these sessions have identified key ACRL values, oppor- tunities, and threats; they have focused on issues of communication, member services, and the role of ACRL in the national higher education community; they have identified diversity and the 11graying of academic librarianship" as human resources issues of concern to the association on behalf of its membership. In September 1994 an Interim Plan- ning Committee was formed, composed of the ACRL Planning Committee and the Executive Committee of the board. This group has worked diligently to mold the output from the Leadership Planning Sessions into series of docu- ments that will reshape and guide ACRL for the coming five years. The draft mission statement as cur- rently conceived is: 11The mission of the Association of College and Research Li- braries is to provide leadership for de- velopment, promotion and improvement of academic and research library services in order to enhance learning, research, scholarship and service. The Association strives to promote the highest level of pro- fessional excellence for librarians in order to serve the users of academic and research libraries. 11 The two-pronged focus on li- brary services and librarians is deliberate, and the vision and goals follow from this mission in a logical sequence. Key to the successful implementation of the new plan is a change in the way 195 196 College & Research Libraries the Board of Directors operates. A task force of the board, under the leadership of former president Jacqueline McCoy, recommended less micromanagement of association affairs, and more emphasis on "big-picture," policy, and strategic ar- eas. The board has embraced this recom- mendation, and has agreed that its role in the ongoing pla-nning process is to: • Set overall direction and communi- cate that direction to the association; • Assure that the plan is effective; • Keep ownership of the plan; • Assure alignment of overall and unit planning; • Develop or reevaluate mission, vision, values, strategic areas, and goals; and • Develop priorities for the coming year. The operating arm for the board, in carrying out these functions, is the Plan- ning Committee, which will become a committee of the board. Why go through this process? ACRL, as a national membership organization, clearly has a responsibility toward its membership to serve its members in the best possible way. It is also a professional association and needs to have a more vis- ible presence in the library and higher edu- cation communities of this nation, and indeed of the world. ACRL is the only organization that serves all academic Mayl995 and research librarians and the institu- tions they represent; there are many is- sues we need to weigh in on, and we have not done so consistently in the past. ALA's Goal2000 and its elements are very consonant with the ideals that have been expressed over the years by ACRL' s leaders. For this reason, ACRL has en- dorsed heartily both morally and finan- cially the effort being put forth by ALA to enhance its representation in gov- ernmental affairs and in the rapidly changing environment of information technology policy. With this support, ACRL urges that there be specific and expert representation of libraries in higher education within the strength- ened ALA Washington Office. The reshaping of ACRL is vitally im- portant to its continuing success, and to its future growth. The documents that describe the reshaping will be available to the membership on the ACRL listser- ver (acrl-frm@uicvm.uic.edu), which is intended to provide a forum for discus- sion of issues of common interest. I urge members of the association to subscribe to this listserver and join the conversa- tion, helping the evolution of ACRL to- ward its new role in higher education in the information age. SUSAN K. MARTIN President of ACRL IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES OF COLLEGE & RESEARCH LIBRARIES Telecommuting for Original Cataloging Leah Black and Colleen Hyslop Requirements for the Digital Research Library Peter Graham Electronic and Print Information: Active Distribution and Passive Retention in Relation to a Murder Frances Groen Bibliographic Software Comes to Windows Do you manage bibliographic referer:tces, or acquire, catalog, classify, and preserve materials? Do you work with electronic information systems, or collect and manage rare books and special collections? If so, you need the power and versatility of ProCite, the leading bibliographic management software program. ProCite offers a convenient way to manage, distribute, and print bibliographic information. ProCite handles the difficult layout and for- matting of records, letting you concentrate on the task at hand. OU.•IN~a:Febru aryl7,1919 + v.a- ........ a:44 • ••Wtad&:tdlll:o4 '•t(s):l~ ISm rt. .. :~:::=~~or~~dfto.aUlOl'llintnrriceimoPnCihwin& eau= AbrietM•aipioootlbeffi*"-"'-"oiU.Ccchdliealrt~ '-0 Ka,...W :BibJio-LinkWClH"'ul The smart State A of the rt Leaders in the Information Industry providing subscription services, article delivery and library automation software. • REMO Mouse driven serials management system. • Ross Online ordering, claiming and searching of journal and publisher databases. • Renewal Express PC-based system to analyze current serials holdings and plan for the future collection development. • Financial Planner Lotus format- ted worksheet to analyze previous spending history and plan future budget allocations. • UnCover The fastest most compre- hensive service for fax delivery of journal articles available today. • BACKSERV An Internet list devoted to the informal exchange of serial back issues among libraries. 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