SLA-NY Strategic Plan--Including Vision, Mission and Goals--2010 through 2012

Introduction:

The SLA-NY Strategic Planning Committee is presenting a plan for the use of the Chapter which charts objectives and actions for approximately three years, specifically 2010 through 2012; the plan will be reviewed annually by the Strategic Planning Committee with the current President-Elect subsequent to the announcement of his/her election in the fourth quarter of each year. This plan looks to make sense of the profession's recent experiences and assumptions and to test those assumptions against the experiences of New York Chapter members. New York Chapter members have witnessed major changes regarding employment opportunities and organizational attitudes toward the use of information. These attitudinal shifts have influenced the architecture of knowledge services, causing dislocation and necessitating change for which the profession is currently not prepared.

The Strategic Planning Committee has appointed itself the SLA-NY body that is recommending both conceptual discussion and practical action to explore new roles for the information professional, particularly within the environment that the New York chapter membership now finds itself.

Call To ACTION:

The Strategic Planning Committee, through the Vision, Mission and Goals outlined in this plan, recommends that the next three years be devoted to management or information issues affecting the information professional including specific educational programs which provide opportunities for skill assessment and skill adoption for current and new roles as they are revealed. Consequently, the plan is weighted toward employment oriented activities.

The Chapter is also facing organizational and administrative issues of its own that will be addressed during this Strategic Plan. The Strategic Plan recommends the formation of committees to be called to review and to provide solutions to the four challenges outlined in this report.

The Committee recommends that the President charge a task force or committee to pursue each challenge. The President should publish the charge, the named chair and the schedule of deliverables for each task force/committee on the Chapter website. The incoming President each year, as part of assuming the leadership of the Chapter, should review each task/force committee and its charge to determine whether to continue the committee and whether to modify the charges. Any changes should be published on the Chapter website.

Challenges:

• Membership Campaign to be conceived and executed to stabilize and expand the current membership. An expanded membership both in number and type of members would be beneficial in providing members with a wider and more interesting and varied network of colleagues.

• Fundraising Solutions for the Chapter's activities. The historic appeal to vendors for sponsorship is not as fruitful or successful or easy as it once was and the Chapter should look to alternative fund raising motions. The Strategic Plan looks to explore a new relationship with the vendors who are now or could be friends to members of the chapter. As information professionals lose influence as buyers, they have consequently lost influence with vendors. A committee should be called to explore the historical and current relationships to uncover new synergies between these two groups.

• Library and Information Science Schools Curriculum. Work with local graduate programs to make them more relevant to the needs and realities of the 21st century job market in the New York metropolitan area.

• Expand interest and expertise in Information Policy. Identify members who are currently serving in technical roles and investigate new issues regarding information policy within organizations in an effort to document knowledge and explore new employment opportunities.

SLA-NY Vision and Mission Statements

VISION:
Situated in a global center of knowledge and knowledge professionals, the SLA New York Chapter identifies, defines, and communicates the value of its members. The Chapter anticipates and evaluates trends with the intention of exploring and creating opportunities to influence the knowledge industry.

MISSION:
The New York Chapter will be the regional catalyst for the fostering and discussion of new professional ideas through which its members will become the most competitively positioned knowledge professionals in the metropolitan area.

Advocacy
Champions the value of our membership to the information and knowledge marketplace; promotes the recognition of accomplishments within the organization and society.
• Continue the mentoring program for students, and create a professional to professional mentoring program.
• Create a YouTube video on mentoring, using the Business and Finance video on mentoring from the late 1990s as a model.
• Create a new video for marketing information professionals to employers and post it on YouTube.
• Redesign the SLA-NY website for maximum member usability and to serve as a platform for chapter marketing.

Education
Identifies and communicates new employment trends and creates training opportunities to cultivate an evolving skill set and expertise.
• Establish and encourage a career development program that emphasizes the growth of the whole professional.
• Organize and create an Education Committee of professionals who will work in tandem with area information science and library schools to shape curriculum in these schools. After creating the model, partner with other chapters in approaching other schools on the East coast.
• Initiate a research program that documents and confirms current benchmarks and metrics within and for special libraries to explore whether these metrics are aligned with current employers’ expectations.


Community
Connects members to a network of information professionals, recruiters, vendors, students, and other related information industry partners, fostering a collaborative approach to advocacy on behalf of the profession and learning.
• Re-invigorate or re-imagine a more formal member networking organization in which members can seek, recommend, and secure career information and opportunities.
• Identify ten related information professional associations and initiate at least three events or programs per year in partnership with them.

Information Policy
Aspires to enable our members to define, influence and execute information policy within their organization. Through its usual platforms of programming, publishing or information distribution, the Chapter will:
• Explore the new information infrastructure now in use within organizations (applications, language, open source, cloud, etc.)
• Explore tools for information access and distribution (such as proprietary organizational tools and methods, access to information through mobile platforms, search, social networking, etc.)
• Understand the organizationally specific use of information in observing industry regulatory environments and for working in conjunction with compliance and regulatory agencies while securing information for future use, in proper formats, and in anticipation of disaster.

Approved by the SLA-NY Board of Directors on June 22, 2010.