Planning Resources for Public Librarians

Results Workforms in Electronic Format

The Public Library Association has joined with E-Learn Libraries, Inc. to offer electronic versions of the workforms from the popular PLA Results series. These forms are available free of charge to the thousands of librarians who are using the books in the series to make management decisions in their libraries. The instructions and workforms included in each title can be accessed by clicking on the appropriate title below.

• Creating Policies for Results
• Demonstrating Results
• Managing for Results
• The New Planning for Results
• Staffing for Results
• Technology for Results

Plans on the Web

• Libraries that used The New Planning for Results (If you would like your library's plan to be included in this list, email the URL or an electronic copy of the plan to me and I will be happy to add it.)
  
  
• Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records Planning Project: In 2002, the Library Development Division of the Arizona State Library trained twenty librarians from around the state to facilitate public library planning processes using The New Planning for Results. State Library staff then matched the trained facilitators with public libraries interested in planning and paid the facilitators a stipend for each library plan that was completed. The State Library also awarded a $2,000 implementation grant to each library that completed a plan. A total of 87 Arizona public libraries have completed plans since 2002. Click here to see plans from some of those libraries. For more information about this project, email the project coordinator, Mala Muralidharan.

The Future of Libraries and Information Services

• Long Overdue: A Fresh Look at Public and Leadership Attitudes About Libraries in the 21st Century
• 2005 Perceptions of Libraries and Information Resources
• 2003 OCLC Environmental Scan: Pattern Recognition
• Reading at Risk (National Endowment for the Arts)
• The Continuing Evolution of the Internet (Pew Internet & American Life Project)

Library Data

• Federal State Cooperative Service for Public Library Data
• Public Library Data Service Statistical Report
• State Library Agencies (click on "Member Profiles" to go to individual state agencies)

Demographic Data

• U.S. Census Data
• School District Data

Evaluation

• Institute of Museum and Library Services (Showing the Difference We Make: Outcome Evaluation in Libraries and Museums)
• Southern Ontario Library Service (The Library's Contribution to Your Community: A Resource Manual for Libraries to Document their Social and Economic Contribution to the Local Community).
• University of Michigan and the University of Washington (How Libraries and Librarians Help - Putting Outcome Evaluation in Context: A Toolkit )
• W. K. Kellogg Foundation (W.K. Kellogg Foundation Evaluation Handbook).

Consultants and Facilitators

• Library Consultants Directory Online (This list of full and part-time library consultants can be searched by name, state, or consulting specialty)

© Sandra Nelson, 2007