URN_NBN_SI_DOC-PAZY25RH

STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR LIBRARIES IN THE ELECTRONIC AGE Shirley K. Raker M IT Libraries, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA Faced with an increasing variety of information, a level of financial support which increases but cannot keep pace with the volume of publish­ ing in all formats, and a changing technological environment, what is the best way to plan for the future? The MIT Libraries have chosen to engage in a strategic planning process which has allowed us to address issues of the provision of information to our user community and to the larger world. In our planning, we are addressing particularly the issues of electronic access to information and services, the role a university plays in providing access to its unique resources, and the relationship of the individual university to the international electronic directories of information such as OCLC. To test our vision of the future against that of our peer institutions, we have made site visits to fourteen major university libraries in the United States and have gained a conception of the spread and variation of development in American universities in the electronic provision and sharing of information. This paper addresses the strategic planning process, the resulting vision for the sharing of print and electronic information, and the place of that vision within university education in the United States. Knjižnica. Tematska Št. IA TU L 1989 49