Defining the strategic focus for the scenarios and strategic conversation to follow was the first step in the project. The strategic focus was developed based on a series of internal interviews, focus groups and surveys of key constituents. These activities occurred during April and May 2010 and were conducted by Stratus, Inc. and ARL staff. The data gathering explored and uncovered the core strategic questions on the minds of key decision makers in member research libraries as they consider future challenges and opportunities facing their organizations. In addition, interviews with external thinkers on the future of research libraries and the strategic challenges they face expanded the set of strategic questions identified. A report that summarizes the findings of that process can be found at http://www.arl.org/bm~doc/scenarios-data-gathering-summary-082010.pdf.
Through the internal data gathering processes described above, the following strategic focus for the scenarios was defined:
How do we transform our organization(s) to create differential value for future users (individuals, institutions, and beyond), given the external dynamics redefining the research environment over the next 20 years?
The term, “we” refers to the ARL member research libraries. “Our organization(s)” was captured in both the singular and plural as member libraries shared an interest in both individual strategic planning, as well as, collaborative strategic planning.
“Transform” is a term that carries a legacy. In this context, the word refers to the opportunity to use the scenario set to help research libraries to re-define themselves to maintain and grow a differential value in the market. That being said, it is important to note that research libraries are all at different points in their individual evolution.
Everyone that shared insights with ARL brought up concerns about maintaining and or building relevancy that could be sustained and valued by users. Sustained value by definition must have some differentiating characteristic that ensures that value for users is maintained over time. As such, the terminology “differential value” seems to most accurately capture the strategic imperative most frequently focused on by member organizations.
Value is always for the customer, or in this case the user. Members discussed how the user group for research libraries was changing and expanding. As such, we chose to clarify the focus on “future users.” Some members focused primarily on the parent institutions, others on individual users. The term “future users” includes these two critical stakeholders and is not limited to future possibilities that may take us beyond our current thinking.
“Research environment” is deliberately selected as a manageable scope. It allows for the consideration of the broad number of dynamics impacting the entire process of research, instead of “research and learning environment” which becomes unmanageably broad. However, it is important to note that although this scenario exercise did not focus on the full set of dynamics that are changing the future of learning, learning and its critical role in the research process are considered part of the “research environment.”