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Posted: Monday, March 1, 2010, 9:21 am
Our 2010-2012 Strategic Plan is almost finished!
We'll soon make it available online and will share the highlights of the plan at this year's community breakfast, scheduled for Wednesday, April 14.
The plan was developed with extensive input from the community as well as the library board of trustees and staff. By formally partnering with the Worthington City Schools and City of Worthington to create the Worthington Area 360° project, we were able to ask hundreds of people (through focus groups, surveys and community meetings) to share their opinions, ideas and concerns about the future of the Worthington community.
The impetus to create the Worthington Area 360° project resulted from the realization that, although we are markedly different in terms of the scope of services we provide, our constituents overlap (the City of Worthington is located in the Worthington School District, which has the same boundaries as the Library) and information gleaned from talking to residents about community life in general would be useful to each organization as we worked to develop our individual strategic plans. This process helped us to identify collaborative projects, as well as those we can work on individually, with the overarching goal of maintaining a strong, vital community now and in the future.
Our own survey of library cardholders also provided useful information and will help us to further prioritize library services. Not surprisingly, books ranked as the number one service provided by the Library. People also placed high value on the ability to reserve materials online and to access computers and the Internet at the Library. Programs to advance early childhood literacy and to promote kindergarten readiness were also important to patrons.
The comment section of the survey was illuminating! A surprising number of people believe the library's open hours changed as a result of the well-publicized reduction in state funding for libraries. While many local library systems have changed or reduced their hours of operation, Worthington Libraries maintains its schedule of open hours, including Sundays from 1-5 pm during the school year.
In addition, many people think Worthington Libraries is part of the Columbus Metropolitan Library system. We have a reciprocal borrowing agreement with Columbus Metropolitan Library (and Southwest Public Libraries), which allows patrons to seamlessly access, check out and return materials at any of our locations, but we are distinct systems. The complete survey results and comments are available on the library's Web site (click on the "About" tab and then on "Administration").
Misconceptions aside, the important thing is that so many people participated in this process, making the library's 2010-2012 Strategic Plan a true community project. Thank you to everyone who contributed their thoughts and ideas!
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