Planning and Statewide Involvement

Establishment of Overall Goals

To effectively fulfill its responsibilities under the law, the Department must (1) serve the Legislature's information needs, (2) ensure public access to public information, and (3) foster statewide library and cultural community collaboration. Our overall Department goals pertain to all of our activities and identify our "businesses" as providing public access, documenting and preserving Arizona's history, and ensuring statewide cultural community communication. However, in summary we will know our Department has been successful when:

each Legislative member knows who we are and what we do, here in Phoenix and in his / her District;
each Legislative member turns to us to help them, when appropriate, in their work;
the library and cultural communities of Arizona looks to us for leadership, problem solving, and as a meeting place for some of the most exciting information, cultural and historic preservation projects for Arizonans;
the library and cultural communities collaborate with us to build an inventory of Arizona's cultural collections - print and web-based - for all to use;
Arizona's citizens who visit us onsite or online find what they are looking for, or learn from using our collections; and
our Department customers evaluate our products and service positively

Place of LSTA

In our overall Plan, Goal III; Strategic Activity 2 pertains directly to the Library Service and Technology Act.

Goal III - Foster Statewide Library and Cultural Community Collaboration;

Strategic Activity 2: Implement the new federal Library Service and Technology Act (LSTA).

Performance Indicators
- representation from the entire cultural community at three May 1997 meetings; statewide representation in special supplemental museum meeting
- completion of first LSTA Plan by July 31, 1997 and update annually
- receipt of at least one quarter of all LSTA applications from cross-cultural partnerships (involving two or more community-based cultural institutions)
- submitting an Arizona application for at least one National Leadership Grant program seeking new funds to help us identify, preserve, and make publicly available, Arizona's history

Involving Libraries, Cultural Institutions and Users

In the spring of 1997, three Public Forums were conducted in various parts of the state to both educate the potential participants about current and potential library services, and to solicit their opinions regarding future services. The State Library used the forums as an opportunity to discuss the changes that are taking place in the federal program and the State Library's desire to have input from a wide variety of potential stakeholders. Following the forums, under the sponsorship of the Heard Museum, State Library staff brought together several of Arizona's museum directors in a special meeting to announce the new collaborative opportunities that the LSTA Act has made available between libraries and other cultural resource centers. The State Library considers these new cooperative efforts and relationships as an exciting trend in the improvement of Arizona's quality of life, not only for its residents and visitors, but also for those who may want to research Arizona's cultural resources from beyond the state's boundaries.

A copy of the Final Five-Year Plan will be placed on the Department's Internet Homepage http://www.lib.az.us/, and information as to its public availability will be posted on the Department's Listserv and in its print-form Newsletter. A full print-form copy will be sent to every library in Arizona, as well as every museum or other organization determined to be a possible partner in the program.

Invitations to respond with recommendations will be included with all postings and mailings in order to collect ideas as to local needs; the process of review and response will be continued over the life of the Plan so that new ideas can be incorporated into revisions of the Plan. Stakeholder groups and organizations will also be contacted regularly in order to help the State Library stay abreast of the changing needs of Arizona's libraries and cultural resource centers; this should provide the Department staff a constant flow of ideas over time so that modifications and improvements can be made to the Five-Year Plan.

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Updated: 11/24/2006