• What are the services being provided by your Information Center today?
• What services will be provided in the foreseeable short term?
• What business needs and new technologies might create opportunities for providing information services in a different, expanded, more creative, more vital way in the future?
• How can your efforts be more tightly aligned with corporate objectives?
  
  Answers to these questions are the building blocks of a Strategic Plan for your Information Center. Tools to build a Strategic Plan are available here and include:
  
  

Ideally, information professionals will become involved in the overall strategic planning process for their entire organization. The process is most straightforward if it is a top-down initiative, with detailed instructions on how the strategic plan for each business unit is to be completed so that there is consistency in the vision and objectives. Input from the various business units should then fit into an umbrella plan developed by the executive team. In this scenario, information professionals can provide background information on the what is happening in the industry and markets served by the organization and help formulate plans for providing timely, actionable information to the organization on an ongoing basis.

If a company does not have a formal strategic planning process, information professionals can still develop a strategic plan to conceptualize and guide how information services will be delivered in the present and the future in their organizations. The plan should then be widely disseminated so that a clear understanding of the value of the information center is established throughout the organization.

Professional Competency 1.3 of the SLA document "Competencies for Special Librarians of the 21st Century" states "The Special Librarian develops and manages convenient, accessible and cost-effective information services that are aligned with the strategic directions of the organization". Today's most successful information centers are those that have assumed responsibility for making sure their initiatives and goals are aligned with the initiatives and goals of the larger organization.

We welcome your feedback, questions, and your contributions relating your experiences with the strategic planning process. You may contact us at infopro2@dowjones.com.