Governance

Additional Governance Resources

Strategic Plan 2010-2012

VISION

The Greater Western Library Alliance is a dynamic, effective, project-oriented regional consortium of leading research libraries located in the Central and Western United States. It is an internationally recognized leader in the transformation of scholarly communication, and a facilitator in the application of new information technologies. The activities and collaborative projects of the Alliance contribute to a demonstrable expansion of access to quality information both within and beyond the boundaries of the consortium.

MISSION

The Greater Western Library Alliance delivers cost-effective and high-quality information services and resources to its member institutions and their clientele. The Alliance is a full partner and dynamic leader in the national and international scholarly arenas of learning and research. It relies on the highly skilled staffs of its member libraries to capitalize on new technologies, to forge effective and meaningful partnerships, and to promote innovation and excellence.

GOALS & STRATEGIES

GOAL 1: Access—GWLA will develop and provide a suite of user-focused services that will improve access to information, be competitive, and will promote reform of the scholarly communication system.

Strategies:

Expand and promote cooperative access to electronic journals and other shared content and resources through partnerships with journal editors on our campuses. Develop a blog or website (KU, Berkeley Press) with evaluative information on options and opportunities. (Champions: Haricombe, Giesecke; JB Staff Liaison)

Develop a collaborative project with the Center for Research Libraries to digitize, archive, and provide persistent and unrestricted access to federal technical reports issues prior to 1975.

Enhance GWLA’s ILL/document delivery services by continuous assessment and performance improvement. (Champion: Lowman; AM Staff Liaison)

Plan and evaluate the implementation of new technologies that are of interest to GWLA members. Explore such items as: ecommerce software, discovery tools, making resources available to broader constituent groups. (Champions: Stoffle, Prestamo)

Investigate and participate in national preservation programs for both print and digital materials.

Promote and advocate for scholarly communications issues.

GOAL 2: Preservation—Through partnerships among its member institutions, GWLA will explore tools and technologies to preserve scholarly information in a variety of formats.

Strategies:

Identify collections of shared interest and collaborate on reformatting efforts. Charge CD committee with developing strategy. (AM Staff Liaison)

Participate in digital preservation programs for materials in all formats. Explore how GWLA can support such programs. (Champion: Olsen; JD and DCC)

Develop a GWLA disaster plan—identify and inventory expertise and equipment. (Champions: Cogswell, Carlson, Baker, & Mochida)

Develop strategies and partnerships for joint print repositories. (Including cost structure, participation parameters/guidelines, etc.) (Champions: Clement, Iannuzzi, Browar; AM and CD)

GOAL 3: Collections – Develop and implement programs to leverage our collective resources and reflect the collections and research strengths of the GWLA libraries.

Strategies:

Create a program and infrastructure for developing targeted, broad-based digital collections that support instruction and research on member campuses. Phase 2 of the Western Waters Digital Library (www.westernwaters.org) will serve as the first development project. (Champion: Olsen; JD and DCC)

Facilitate customer driven collection development in GWLA libraries. (Champions: Hair, Rooks; AM, CD, RSDD)

Recommend best practices for providing continued access to purchased subscribed electronic journal content for canceled ongoing electronic journal subscriptions.

GOAL 4: Promote Organizational Effectiveness - Promote innovative organizational development within the consortium to ensure GWLA effectiveness.

Strategies:

Grow staff expertise in new areas for both GWLA and library staff with training and staff development opportunities.

Create reference and instruction task force to explore the following: new skill building, campus partnerships, sharing online resources and instruction materials, embedded librarianship, create an inventory of initiatives in GWLA libraries (Champion: Carver; JB)

Encourage and develop more partnerships and collaboration within GWLA that reach beyond “library-to-library” cooperation.

Develop and implement an effective and ongoing assessment process for all GWLA programs. Charge each committee with developing metrics for assessment.