28 januari 2011

Professional Development, Values and Strategy – the Means for Building Strong Libraries for the Future!

Jag har i dag fått besked att mitt proposal till IFLA konferensen i Puerto Rico i augusti har blivit accepterat. Mitt proposal i sin helhet:

The Library and Information sector (LIS) is going through massive change. In this world of change we need to create strong development environments to ensure a viable future that provides benefits to all our customers. In this work professional development is essential for all organizations.

Professional development needs to be in line with the strategy of the organization as well as build on the organizational values. We all, including all of our staff, need to have a clear picture of where we aim and what we need to do in order to achieve our goals. The changes of customer expectations, behavior and the technology development affects the traditional role of the LIS which makes it even more important to work with the identity of the library as well as the priority of our activities.

As I see it, values, strategy and professional development go hand in hand in the development process. Most important in this process is to involve all of our staff in order to achieve development and get a deep understanding and a true change in our perception of the library business. The staff participating in the process creates a breeding ground for our working environment and ensures success for the future.

Within the Universtity Library at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences we’ve worked with professional development, strategy and values as well as empowerment and leadership. This development work has involved all of the staff (50 people) with good results. I will in my speech give some specific examples of what we’ve done, what has worked well and what we can improve. We are in the middle of this process and there is a lot of more work to be done – but most important is that we’ve initialized the travel towards the future library!

Catharina Isberg
Deputy Library Director, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences

Inga kommentarer: