Strategic Plan 2024-2027

STRATEGIC PLAN
2024 – 2027
Building for the Future
BIXBY MEMORIAL FREE LIBRARY

History

The Bixby’s previous strategic plan was originally designed to provide direction from 2017-2020. During the pandemic, Bixby went through a number of shifts and changes in its staffing and the composition of the Board. As a result, updating the plan was put on hold for several years. In the fall of 2022, the planning process was restarted with Tom Borchert, Catharine Hays, and Erin Roche attending the Vermont Library Board Association strategic planning workshop and beginning conversations about the goals of planning. As part of their discussions, they gathered feedback from Library staff and reviewed materials from the plans of the five towns that the Bixby serves. 

In May of 2023 the library board held a retreat for the main purpose of revising the strategic plan.  From this retreat, three main strategic focus areas emerged: 1) Belonging, 2) Sustainability, and 3) Literacy. At that time, the Strategic Planning Committee was reorganized and given the task of generating a new plan using these focus areas.  The committee members are Tom Borchert, Tania Bolduc, and Marsha Hoffman.  The committee has been meeting since October 2023, with the goal of presenting the first draft to the Board on February 12, 2024, so that the Board might accept a final version in April 2024. 

BIXBY LIBRARY MISSION, VISION, GOALS & OBJECTIVES 

OUR MISSION 

Bixby Memorial Free Library provides a welcoming, resource-rich community center that residents of and visitors to its five towns will value, use, and support.  

OUR VISION 

Bixby Memorial Free Library is a thriving institution where people of all ages, abilities, and backgrounds turn for information, connection, and enrichment. This contributes to the vitality of the five-town community and beyond.

OUR GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

Goal 1 – Belonging
Position the library to be a place where people and organizations feel they are:  welcomed, valued, encouraged, and heard.  A place where partnerships flourish with no physical barriers to accessibility.  

Objectives: 

  1. Expand and improve emergent programming with age-diverse and equity-oriented lenses.
  2. Minimize physical barriers to all spaces in the building.
  3. Conduct a “welcome audit” to determine who the Bixby is and is not reaching, and develop strategies to make all feel they belong.

Goal 2 – Sustainability 
The Library will seek and steward both human and financial resources as it continues to improve and upgrade its historic building and grounds while modernizing infrastructure and ensuring accessibility and safety for patrons. 

Objectives: 

  1. Develop a master plan that maximizes space for accessible programming.
  2. Develop strategic partnerships, especially within the five towns.
  3. Create a sustainable annual and 3-year budget projection, which includes fundraising and preservation of capital goals. 
  4. Develop human resources (staff, trustees, and volunteers), with an attention to sustainability, professional development and staff well-being.

Goal 3 – Literacy
Be a place where learning and community engagement are nurtured together with other local institutions 

Objectives:

  1. Create programs and space for programs that are responsive to and forward-thinking for the five-town community.
  2. Expand access to technology for individuals and community groups.
  3. Strengthen partnerships with schools and other local educational institutions.
  4. Use patron and program participation data to better understand and continue to listen to the community regarding areas of interest in literacy (financial literacy, digital literacy, history literacy, etc.).

Adopted by the Bixby Library Board of Trustees on April 15, 2024