From The Director

By Tom Wilding

Staying Ahead

Two associated themes are included in this newsletter. The first focuses on some of the changes that have occurred over the last few decades as technology has become an increasingly large presence in our service programs. The second has to do with the involvement of many staff in our planning process. The association of these themes points out that, without the planning process, the changes related to technology would not have led us to where we are today.

We try through our planning process to look into the future and understand the opportunities and challenges for the Libraries in the context of the changes we see in technology, scholarly publishing, higher education, society, and other parts of our environment. In addition, we try increasingly to engage our research and learning communities, both on and off campus, in communications about their needs. We try to balance these two things, the latter focused more on the services of today; the former focused more on the possible services of tomorrow.

We are very interested in how our customers today evaluate the services we provide, and we are intent on improving those services to meet their needs better. We are equally interested in how our future customers will evaluate the services we are planning to offer, based on what we know about them, but also what we know might be possible in the future. The amazing amount of access that today’s customers – students, faculty, and others – enjoy would not have been possible had we waited until they were available to plan to offer them.

The wonderful quote by Wayne Gretzky, often repeated, on how he could play hockey so well, “I skate to where I think the puck will be,” works equally well for us. Gretzky knew the reality of the moment but used all his knowledge of his environment to predict the future. We do the same. We know the reality of the information world and the world of higher education today, but it is our ability to predict the future and to strategize on its fulfillment, that will be the true measure of our success.