Strategic Plan

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Strategic Plan

The 2019-2024 strategic plan positions the Brown University Library to be a more effective organization and resource to the Brown campus. Grounded in the areas defined by the University as most critical for Brown’s overall academic excellence, the plan lays out a vision for how the Library can do more to help realize key University goals and contribute to Brown’s distinction in the wider scholarly world.

The University Library’s foundational purposes are embedded at the core of Brown University’s mission statement: “discovering, communicating, and preserving knowledge and understanding in a spirit of free inquiry.” Further, the University’s mission statement emphasizes our identity as a collaborative community of experts and learners, which is also central to the Library’s mission and philosophy. 

The Library’s strategic plan, initially covering the five-year period 2019 to 2024, set out to create an intentional framework for building upon existing strengths and recent initiatives at the Library while at the same time sharpening focus around priorities that would more closely align the Library’s resources, services, programs, and expertise with the plans and priorities of the University as a whole, articulated initially in Building on Distinction: A New Plan for Brown (2013), followed by the Operational Plan for Building Brown’s Excellence (2015), and Pathways to Diversity and Inclusion: An Action Plan for Brown University (2016).

Strategic Objectives

In setting out its plan, the Library defined a set of six major objectives:

Forward Momentum

The Library has accomplished a great deal in all these areas since the strategic plan was launched, and the plan was instrumental in the Library’s continued forward movement during the extreme disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The strategy has also demonstrated that it works as a living plan. Its objectives have grown and evolved along with wider developments at Brown, including significant updates to the University’s operational plan (2018) and diversity and inclusion plan (2021). In 2022, release of the Operational Plan for Investing in Research presented a further elaboration and extension of Brown’s strategy, including the Library’s role in supporting and contributing to Brown’s research growth.

Although the Library’s strategic plan reached its formal end date in 2024, its broad objectives remain no less valid for setting priorities and directions. With current circumstances less propitious for long-term visioning and planning, we will continue to be guided by these objectives while also continuing to evaluate their efficacy to ensure they remain relevant and up-to-date.

Continuous Process

The 2019-24 strategic plan grew out of work begun in 2017-18 to review the mission, organization, direction, and operations of the Library. The resulting plan benefited from the vision and work of many staff and the valuable input from faculty, students, staff, administrators, and other stakeholders.

Library Operational Plan

The Library’s operational plan establishes key strategic priorities and sets forth a path to help the Library achieve new levels of effectiveness in managing its resources and fulfilling its mission. As a working document, the operational plan will adjust over time, building on the strides made towards accomplishing our strategic goals and reflecting the dynamic environment in which the Library operates. Ongoing progress will be tracked on the Status Matrix while more detailed measures for specific goals will be showcased on the Metrics Dashboard (forthcoming).

Key Documents