Creating Your Library's Business Plan: A How‐to‐Do‐it Manual with Samples on CD‐ROM

Citation

Calvert, P. (2009), "Creating Your Library's Business Plan: A How‐to‐Do‐it Manual with Samples on CD‐ROM", The Electronic Library, Vol. 27 No. 6, pp. 1047-1048. https://doi.org/10.1108/02640470911004147

There are librarians whose hearts fill with dread at the mere mention of a “business plan”. They didn't become librarians, they will say, to spend hours writing out plans, setting goals and time frames, using measurement data, and costing everything that moves or doesn't move. Yet these activities now fill large portions of the library manager's time and the ability to write a cogent and credible business plan is an essential part of the repertoire. This excellent manual will help all those who still find writing business plans a struggle.

The contents cover the whole process from the first moment of asking why a business plan is necessary to the last steps of communicating the plan to stakeholder groups. Along the way the reader is shown all the component parts of a typical business plan, and there are 25 sample plans to use as examples. Chapters deal with describing the service as it is, setting objectives for the future, conducting a SWOT analysis, determining strategies and action plans, and the related activities of writing both marketing and financial plans.

There are 30 worksheets that can be used at various stages of the process, and all the worksheets and sample plans are reproduced on a CD‐ROM that accompanies the book, making it even more practical for the library manager to use. In fact, there is probably nothing hugely original in this book, yet it leads the field because the author has packed so much valuable information between the covers. If a concept is a little difficult for the reader to understand and apply, then there is almost certainly an example to illustrate the point. As a “how‐to‐do‐it” manual it is excellent.

There are numerous references with every chapter and a thorough index. I highly recommend this book for all library studies collections, and if there is a library manager you know who dreads the thought of writing a business plan, do them a favour and tell them about this book. Better still, buy it for yourself.