Competency D

“apply the fundamental principles of planning, management, marketing, and advocacy”

Introduction

Competency D focuses primarily on the planning, management, marketing, and advocacy one must undertake in order to promote their library. These are skills that are necessary not only in library jobs but in any job where you may need to plan for new technologies, manage the staff and data already in the work environment, marketing your library/business/corporation to potential donors, sponsors, community members, etc. Being able to advocate to these groups and individuals why your library is important will ensure that you get the funding needed to continue supporting current projects and achieve goals of starting new projects.

Understanding how to use these skills and when to use them gives you an advantage in whatever profession you have because it helps you to better understand how to lead a team of people in achieving individual or group goals and allows you to rally more support for your goals from third parties like the community, or higher leadership within the organization.Without a good understanding of this competency it becomes infinitely more difficult to plan for new strategies, equipment, or resources within the organization let alone approach other people that could help to support these new ideas with resources like grant money, extra employee support, overtime, etc.

I was first introduced to this competency in my INFO 204: Information Professions class in my very first semester at SJSU. Initially I had thought this course would be exploring various library science jobs a person could get within the library and information science industry. After reading the syllabus for the class I realized that it would be so much more than that. During this course not only was I learning something that I felt I could use in any industry, but I was also working with a group of people from around the United States to create an Organizational Analysis project that examined a library of our choosing and how we could draft an action plan to improve upon something within the library we chose.

This project required us to draft new mission, vision, and value statements for this organization, compose a literature review, an environmental scan and SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) analysis, and then synthesize this information together and present the action plan our organization would perform to succeed in its endeavor to increase use of the library by residents, build technological awareness and skills to library staff, increase morale, and provide more modern services at the library. This project was incredibly complex and adding to the mix that everyone in my group was in various time zones across the country, at different comfort levels with technology, and brand new to the program, it was an extremely tough assignment.

I chose parts 1 and 2 of the Organizational Analysis project because they showcase all the aspects of Comp D: the principles of planning, management, marketing, and advocacy. Part 1 of the Organizational Analysis first explores Forest Public Library and the challenges it faces in terms of employee morale and behavior. My group and I performed a literature review that focused heavily on uncooperative library staff behavior and how it can negatively impact the library experience for both staff and patrons. In addition to this literature review, we drafted new mission, vision, and value statements for our library based on what we would like the see the library become.

Part 1 also explored the characteristics of the library and the community it is part of in the form of an environmental scan that evaluated how the library and community has evolved and changed over the years. We even took into consideration different economic and political trends that could have an effect on the library in the form of increased/decreased use of library services, how this could contribute to the kinds of services the library should offer/cease to offer, and how the library’s location and equipment could also affect how the community values the library.

The SWOT analysis rounded out part 1 of the Organizational Analysis by looking critically at our organizations strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats that would play a huge role in the success we would want our library to see in part 2 of the assignment. Everything within part 1 really focused on the planning and management parts of Comp D because it looked at how things were currently functioning with our organization and laid the groundwork for part 2 of the assignment which would explore how we wanted to change things in our library in the future.

Part 2 of the assignment doubled down on the planning and management piece that we saw in part 1, but it also touched upon the marketing and advocacy piece of Comp D by allowing our group to focus on developing a strategic plan to assist our library in successfully completing the goals we were going to create based on our previous assessment of the SWOT analysis in part 1. In this half of the assignment we planned to complete our goals of increasing patron use, building technological awareness in library staff and boosting staff morale, completing a library remodeling project and providing modern services for the community by creating and easy to follow plan that would be implemented over a two year period. This second half of our assignment broke down each goal into various objectives that were then assessed for current trends and given projected trends based off our action plans for each goal.

The purpose of part 2 of the assignment is to really showcase how we would market to the community why we would need funding to allow the library to finish its renovations and modernize the equipment and services the library would provide to the community based off of what the community’s needs were from the environmental scan and SWOT analysis from part 1 of the assignment. Part 2 really allowed us as a group to try and advocate to the community why the library was still valuable and culturally relevant.

Evidence

Organizational Analysis Part 1 NO NAMES

Organizational Analysis Part 2 NO NAMES

Conclusion

I feel that this Organizational Analysis assignment was not only helpful in educating me in Competency D, but I believe it provided me with tools that I will use not only in the field of library science, but int other fields as well. Being able to analyze information about a particular group of people or organization and to critically evaluate what is working and what isn’t is a valuable skill. By using the tools I learned about for this assignment such as the environmental scan and the SWOT analysis I can evaluate any kind of organization or idea by using these tools. This not only helps me to become a better planner, but also allows me to show what we are currently doing and how successful/unsuccessful our current track might be.

By becoming a better planner I can also illustrate to others why making certain changes may be more successful than others (advocacy) and I can explain to potential financial backers or leaders who ultimately determine whether or not a new project can be started why these changes or improvements are not only important but valuable to the organization, community, and employees as a whole. Many projects and ideas live or die because of “buy-in”. Buy-in, or marketing, is a term for a group of people’s perception of value for any given idea or project. If you cannot illustrate to an individual or group why your idea/product/change is valuable to them and could help them achieve their goals (financial, personal, etc.) then ultimately your idea or project just won’t get off the ground.

And finally, by creating goals with specific objectives and action plans to assist us with staying on track in part 2 of the assignment allowed us to really understand the management portion of Comp D. By creating these action plans it allowed us to create a time-table for smaller objectives that make up broader goals and allowed us to showcase that we could take a two year project and break it up into smaller portions that could be more easily approached. By breaking down our larger goals into more manageable bits it allowed achieving our goals to become more successful.