Collaborative re-imagining: accelerating the rate of change in national and state libraries

The online networked environment has already forced the reconfiguration of many industries, from music to banking to electioneering, and will continue to drive major shifts until few industries resemble their twentieth century model Our libraries are now taking a system-wide view of the impact of this environment, looking to 'unbundle' our activities and to assess the most effective way of tackling these challenges. The members of National & State Libraries Australasia (NSLA) are using collaboration to accelerate transformative change, and to move more rapidly than they could on their own. In 2008, NSLA endorsed the Re-imagining Libraries Strategic Plan and began to shift resources from individual library activity to collaborative activity. The projects in the Strategic Plan are underway and the picture of our re-imagined libraries is beginning to take shape. It will include both new services and new approaches to the body of work undertaken in our libraries.
The development of NSLA's collaborative strategic plan in 2008 began with stepping back to analyse what the primary roles are for our libraries and then assessing and exploring: * what [...]