Presented at EDUCAUSE Annual Conferences, Library Planning, and Planning

Epochal changes in the creation and delivery of information and in communication challenge everything we know about teaching, learning, and scholarship. To the academy of tomorrow, the traditional role of library and technology organizations has little value. To continue to be relevant and helpful to our universities missions, library and technology leaders must understand the changes taking place in the world around them, chart new strategic directions, retool their organizations to meet these new challenges, and lead their staff and communities in defining what teaching, learning, and scholarship are and will become.

The presenters will lead attendees in an interactive review of the fluid landscape of the changing world of libraries, IT, and higher education. We will collectively identify the challenges we face, propose solutions, and chart strategic directions, drawing in particular on our experiences with leading successful merged information service organizations.

Institutions are renovating spaces to develop learning or information commons in libraries, academic buildings, and student centers. In some cases, existing commons need refreshing. Information or learning commons are informal learning spaces that offer an environment for collaborative, technology-enabled learning with support from information professionals. Because these projects require a major infusion of resources and often entail a multiyear planning and building process, many institutions grapple with how to structure a process that will yield the best result for the institution.

This seminar will focus on the planning process for these initiatives. Issues we will discuss include establishing a vision for the project; identifying key partners in the planning process; involving campus constituencies; collecting data that will inform the planning process; identifying institutional priorities that should inform the planning process; understanding emerging technology, learning, and information trends that will have implications for the facility; and planning assessment activities.

Computing Services developed tactical planning in 2004 for the 200-plus staff at the enterprise level. University Libraries adapted the process for their IT group of four, and both groups have used the process for two to three years.