Library Board Chair Michelle Grove-Griffin and Library Manager Steven Thomas discuss details of strategic planning process now underway. Courtesy photo

LIBRARY News:

The Los Alamos County Library System is planning for the future and we need your help! You can start by filling out our survey on Open Forum, which is available through March 28. The survey should take fewer than 10 minutes to fill out. Paper copies of the survey will also be available at the service desks in both White Rock and Los Alamos libraries.

“One of the things that I most love about Los Alamos is its high level of community involvement,” Library Manager Steven Thomas said.  “Our residents use the library at measures double to triple the national average and we know how important it is to them. We want to hear everyone’s thoughts on where we are and where they’d like the library to go so that we can work together to have a library that remains top notch while always looking for ways to keep getting better.”

The results of the survey will help to guide the Library’s future plans. In addition to the community survey on Open Forum, a series of focus groups will be held in the coming months. The focus groups are intended to facilitate in-depth community discussion around key service areas such as programs and services for adults, programs and services for kids and teens, library collections, technology, facilities and customer service.

“Especially in a time of tight budgets,” Thomas said, “we want to do our very best to make sure that we are directing our services as closely as possible to community wants and needs. “

Other parts of the strategic planning process have included staff benchmarks and studies of library services throughout the country, and a staff survey. The Library Board has also been actively engaged in the process.

“One of our primary goals in this process is to create a plan that’s both aspirational and achievable,” Thomas said.  “We want to figure out which services would inspire our community while at the same time being workable within existing budgets and providing good value to our citizens.”

The Library Division intends to complete its strategic planning process by Fall 2016.  

Click through to the survey by using the following link:https:////www.losalamosnm.us/gov/Pages/PublicCommentForum.aspx.

Or through the link on the Library Catalog page:https:////losalamos.ent.sirsi.net/client/en_US/default.