The British Librarys Strategy

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The British Librarys Strategy
Lynne BrindleyCEO, The British LibraryApril
2005
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OVERVIEW
The largest document supply service in the world.
Secure e-delivery and just in time digitisation
enables desktop delivery within 2 hours
National library of the UK. Serves researchers,
business, libraries, education the general
public
Over 250 years of collecting. Beneficiary of
legal deposit, and 15m annual acquisitions budget
Generates value to the UK economy each year of
4.4 times public funding

• 3 main funding streams
• DCMS grant-in-aid (89m)
• Annual trading income (25m)
• Donations (4m)

Collection includes over 2m sound recordings, 5m
reports, theses and conference papers, the
worlds largest patents collection (c.50m)
Helping people advance knowledge to enrich lives

Collection fills over 600km of shelving and grows
at 11km per year 1.25 Tb of digital material
through voluntary deposit
3 main sites in London and Yorkshire. 2,250 staff
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OUR HISTORY

• BL was formed under the terms of the British
  Library Act in 1972
• Formed from a number of diverse bodies public
  and private sector organisations
• Moving into St. Pancras was a key moment in our
  history

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RECENT STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT
Early 2005 New corporate strategy
2000 CEO appointed
Strategy phase 1
Strategy phase 2

• Key themes
• Making the case for change
• Restructuring to enable change
• Market focus
• Modernizing our services
• Managing collection as single entity
• E-strategy

• Our approach
• Products services
• Discipline reviews
• Property strategy

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STRATEGY PHASE 1 WHY DID WE NEED TO CHANGE?

• Many of our key external stakeholders (the
  universities, government and business) saw us as
  old fashioned and increasingly irrelevant

• The world was changing fast and we were
  becoming left behind, particularly in terms of
  electronic information and in our services, where
  our revenue was in serious decline

• The Library itself was not functioning well
  working in silos rather than as a single
  organisation

• In the absence of strong decision making from
  Library management powerful trade-unions were
  frequently holding the library to ransom

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WHAT DID WE NEED TO DO?

• Create a new vision for the library
• Create shared urgency for change
• Remove obstacles to change
• Create the capability to deliver change

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HOW IMPORTANT WAS RESTRUCTURING TO ACHIEVING
THESE GOALS?
Importance
Rationale

• Medium

• The Librarys new strategic directions were
  developed with the existing executive team.
  However, developing a culture change vision was
  not possible with a team who did not live that
  culture

Create a new vision for the Library

• Very high

• The existing team did not see an urgency for
  change. To create this sense of urgency, we
  needed to recruit an executive team who could see
  the Library as our customers and users saw us,
  and who had a vested interest in the status quo.
  This was also true of managers lower down in the
  organisation.

Create shared urgency for change
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HOW IMPORTANT WAS RESTRUCTURING TO ACHIEVING
THESE GOALS?
Importance
Rationale

• Very high

• The British Library had a number of managers, at
  all levels, who did not see the need for change
  and who actively opposed it. Without a senior
  (and middle) management team committed to change,
  nothing would happen effectively.

Remove obstacles to change

• Very high

• The library had some very capable managers, but
  also had some serious gaps such as no marketing
  expertise, weak operational management
  capability, and weak IT leadership. In addition,
  the management team lacked people who had a track
  record of delivering to time and budget.

Create the capability to deliver change
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WHAT WERE THE LIBRARYS AIMS AND APPROACH TO ITS
2000/1 RESTRUCTURE?

• Create a corporate team
• Bring in external expertise where necessary
• Remove blockers
• Recruit a team with a track-record of change
  delivery

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STRUCTURE I INHERITED
Chief Executive
Deputy Chief Executive
Director General
Director of Estates
Director of Information Systems
Director of Reader Services Collection
development
Director of Special Collections
Director of Collection management
Director of Public Services
Director of Human Resources
Director of Finance and Planning
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AFTER 2000/1 RESTRUCTURE
Chief Executive
Director Human Resources
Director Scholarship Collections
Director Operations Services
Director Strategic Marketing Communication
Director Finance Corporate Resources
Director E/IS

• Only one appointment (Finance and Corporate
  Resources Director) was existing executive team
  member
• Of new Directors, only one had experience in the
  Library sector, rest were from other industries,
  and three from the commercial sector

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OVERALL CHANGE PROGRAMME TIMELINE
Summer 2000
Summer 2003
Summer 2002
Summer 2001
Summer 2004
Lynne Brindley started as CEO
New Exec Team took up post
Restructuring in service areas to support new
service strategies
Directorate restructuring to enable delivery of
local strategies
Revised vision by market, and culture vision
announced internally
New senior management structures for each
Directorate announced, to create new senior
leadership team. Mix of internal external
recruitment
Restructure announced and posts advertised
New corporate strategy
Phase 2 strategy begins
Individual service and market strategies
developed new brand launched
New performance management system launched
Phase 1 strategy begins - first part of new
vision communicated for consultation
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RECENT STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT
Early 2005 New corporate strategy
2000 CEO appointed
Strategy phase 1
Strategy phase 2

• Key themes
• Making the case for change
• Restructuring to enable change
• Market focus
• Modernizing our services
• Managing collection as single entity
• E-strategy

• Our approach
• Products services
• Discipline reviews
• Property strategy

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STRATEGY PHASE 1 KEY AREAS OF FOCUS

• Becoming more outward and market focused
• Modernizing our services
• Moving towards managing our collection as a
  single entity
• Accelerating the BLs move into the hybrid
  digital/print world through the successful
  development and implementation of an e-strategy

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STRATEGY PHASE 1 - PROGRESS TO DATE

• More externally focused and market facing
• Rationalised and modernised portfolio of services
• Higher public and government profile better at
  working with others
• More effective and efficient management of core
  functions
• More integrated view of collections and their
  management
• Faced up to endemic HR issues modernised our
  people strategy
• Catching up with our technology infrastructure

But still much to do to DELIVER and EMBED
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STRATEGY PHASE 2 OUR APPROACH
Focus for Corporate Strategy review
Analyse strategic context (both internal and
external)
Organisational values

• APPROACH
• First conduct in-depth analysis of BLs strategic
  context (internal and external)
• Then focus efforts on developing long-term Vision
• Ultimately develop Strategic Priorities as first
  stage of Business Planning cycle

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CONCEPTUAL APPROACH TO STRATEGY PHASE 2
1st order lenses
2nd order lenses
3rd order lenses
People organisation
Audiences
Products services
Resource model
Governance risk
Disciplines
Collection lifecycle
Enablers (e.g. estates)

• Context to be considered
• Internal and external context, e.g.
• Unions
• Competitors
• Key govt initiatives (Gershon, Lyons, Browns
  science)

• Touchstones to check strategy against
• Public good/statutory remit
• People values/modernisation agenda
• Stakeholder needs
• BL policies (including regional, home countries,
  EU, social inclusion)

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KEY AREAS OF FOCUS

• Discipline-based reviews
• Science, Technology Medicine
• Social Sciences
• Arts Humanities
• Products and Services Strategy
• Other reviews
• Property strategy
• Influencing strategy
• Regional / home countries / international strategy

• New corporate strategy
• Vision
• Mission
• Strategic priorities

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QUESTIONS WHICH HAVE SHAPED OUR THINKING

• What does it mean to be a great library in the
  21st century?
• How can we serve the needs of the impatient
  Google generation who have grown up with the
  Web and make it their first port of call for
  information?
• How do libraries continue to enable the research
  and learning process when increasingly it is
  happening in a virtual realm outside the context
  of the library?
• How, as only one of a great number of
  alternatives available to information consumers,
  do libraries find new ways of adding value?

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SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY MEDICINE
Emerging proposition
Key findings

• External
• Rapidly changing user needs
• Digital everything especially big data sets
• Electronic journals bundling
• New scholarly comms models emerging
• Internal
• Document supply volumes declining
• Scope to strengthen our skills base

• Recognised as a world-leading STM information
  hub, helping communities of STM researchers
  advance knowledge to enrich lives
• Portfolio of free and priced services to store,
  navigate and provide access to diverse
  research-level information
• Underpinned by a thorough understanding of
  researchers needs
• Work to promote public engagement with science
  and the BLs role in STM

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SOCIAL SCIENCES
Emerging proposition
Key findings

• External
• Diverse users including theoreticians and
  practitioners
• Research needs vary from big data sets to
  traditional monographs
• National landscape dominated by a handful of key
  players, e.g. LSE
• Internal
• Collection has unique strengths but has been less
  prominent historically
• Resource discovery challenges
• Scope to strengthen our skills base

• Collaboration with a small number of key players
  in UK social science provision in order to meet
  researchers needs
• Topics to be explored would include
• Collection development
• Access
• Research skills training

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ARTS HUMANITIES
Emerging proposition
Key findings

• External
• Not just traditional academic researchers
• Increasing interdisciplinarity and collaboration
• Fewer foreign-language literate researchers
• Changing user needs in digital age some
  disciplines going digital more quickly than
  others
• Internal
• Strongest, most extensive collection in UK
• Large number of expert staff

• Blending traditional strengths with new
  capabilities to ensure we keep pace with the
  changing information environment
• Developing our collection to ensure we meet
  current and future user needs
• Leadership role in defining the role of a curator
  in the 21st century

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OUR MISSION AND VISION

• Our mission
• Helping people advance knowledge to enrich lives
• Our vision
• We play a lead role in the changing world of
  research information.
• We exist for everyone who wants to do research
  for academic, personal or commercial purposes.
• We promote ready access to the British Librarys
  collection and expertise through an integrated
  range of services which are increasingly time and
  space independent. We also connect with the
  collections and expertise of others, and work in
  partnership to fulfil our users needs.

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STRATEGIC FOCUS FOR THE NEXT 3 YEARS

• Enriching the users experience
• Transforming search and navigation
• Building the digital research environment
• Growing and managing the national collection
• Developing our people
• Financial sustainability

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NEXT MAJOR STRATEGIC REVIEW (1) COLLECTION
DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
Overall question What should be BLs strategy for
non legal deposit collection development, and how
can we implement this?
Scope In scope All purchased materials all
disciplines all formats (print and digital,
books/journals/sound etc) all types of materials
(e.g. primary/secondary/tertiary) all countries
of origin (including purchased British material)
all languages heritage materials. Note that
donations policy should be informed by this work
but is somewhat different in nature. Out of
scope Legal deposit materials (print and
digital)

• End-products
• Fact-base of contextual material about BLs
  environment, e.g. trends in research, current HE
  libraries acquisitions spend (intermediate
  end-product)
• Fact-base of BLs current holdings and current CD
  policy/practice, including current budget
  allocations (intermediate end-product)
• Overall collection development strategy for non
  legal deposit materials and overview of
  end-to-end implications for the BL (final
  end-product)
• Implementation plan including comms approach
  (final end-product)

There will be some grey areas for example,
since e-legal deposit collection development will
often require some form of selection (e.g. web
archiving) the collection development strategies
for legal deposit and non legal deposit materials
will need to be aligned. Also, regulations about
how we can use legal deposit materials will
impact on what we need to buy to deliver certain
services.
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COLLECTION DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY CLARIFYING THE
SCOPE

• What should be BLs overall principles/philosophy
  for what content we should obtain, including
• What should be the Librarys positioning
  nationally and internationally in collection
  development?
• Are we aiming for a broad, thin coverage across
  everything, strengths in specific areas (which?),
  or a combination? What depths of collection
  should we aim for in different areas?
• Are we still aiming for research level
  material, and if so, what do we mean by this?
• What should drive what we collect, e.g. usage,
  ROI etc?
• How important is historic continuity in
  collecting? How responsive do we aim to be to
  changes in the external environment (e.g.
  Govt-determined research priorities)?
• What should be BLs overall principles for how we
  should obtain this content, including
• Is everything we buy for perpetual storage? When
  will we license, or purchase something just for a
  finite period of time? When will we just link to
  materials held by others? When do we need
  duplicates for service reasons?
• What materials do we aim to buy in print, which
  digital, which both? Why? (What implications?)
• Whats our overall approach to collaborative
  collection development?
• What are the practical implications of these
  principles, including
• At a high-level, how should BL allocate its CD
  budget across countries disciplines/subjects
  languages formats of material (e.g. books, mss,
  journals) types of material (e.g. primary,
  secondary literature)? Why?
• How should we select the materials we purchase
  (plans, item-level selection by BL staff, other)?
• How should we allocate budget responsibilities
  within the BL to give clear financial
  accountability?
• What systems/processes/MIS do we need to put in
  place to ensure we can effectively monitor the
  implementation of the new CD strategy?
• Whats our approach going forward to refreshing
  this strategy consulting on different parts of
  it?

Questions in scope
Questions out of scope

• How much should BL spend on purchased materials
  vs other parts of its budget? (However, will
  need a working assumption on this to set context
  within which this work will take place)

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(2) COLLECTION EXPERTS STRATEGY - DEFINING THE
WORK
Overall question What should be the
organisational model (in the broadest sense) for
BLs collection experts and what is the
implementation plan to attain this?
Scope In scope All collection expert
functions, including curatorial as well as STM
information expert functions Out of scope
Cataloguing, conserving, reference and other
professional functions (except where there is an
important interface with collection expert roles
that needs to be considered)

• End-products
• Fact-base diagnostic of current organisation,
  including numbers, skills, grades, years to
  retirement etc (intermediate end-product)
• Synthesis of stakeholder views internal and
  external - on what collection expertise BL needs
  (intermediate end-product)
• Blueprint for BLs collection expertise within
  the organisation, including overall vision for
  skills/capacity required types of roles required
  (with job descriptions) no. of each type of role
  needed structure of organisation talent
  management/career progression/ learning approach
  opportunities for strategic collaboration (final
  end-product)
• Implementation plan to get us from where we are
  today to the blueprint (final end-product)

Working title defined to include all curators,
STM information experts, and others whose primary
skill set is around knowledge of BLs collection
and content/information more broadly
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COLLECTION EXPERTS STRATEGY _ CLARIFYING THE
SCOPE
Questions in scope

• What is the make-up of the current collection
  experts resource in the British Library?
• Which roles are included in the definition of
  collection experts?
• Which job roles do these collection experts
  currently fulfill?
• What are the job profiles and how much time do
  the experts spend on particular activities?
• How many collection experts are there?
• What are the job grades, current organisation
  structures and reporting arrangements?
• What is the subject-matter expertise profile of
  these experts?
• What are the role and professional competencies
  for these posts?
• What is the actual performance and skills-base
  against these?
• What is the retirement profile of these posts?
• Where are the current skills and knowledge gaps
  in respect of 21st Century collection experts
  (e.g. digitisation)?
• What are our stakeholders views on the future
  collection expert skills and knowledge
  requirements?
• What will the impact be of the Librarys
  Collection Development strategy?
• What options are there for moving to this desired
  future state? Grow in-house? Recruit?
  Secondments? Partnerships?
• Is a transitionary arrangement appropriate or
  desirable?
• What is the implementation plan for achieving
  this future state?
• What are the current and future skills of
  cataloguing, conserving and other professional
  functions?

• What are the skills and subject-matter expertise
  required approaches to skills development
  number of posts required job profiles line
  management arrangements structures pay
  progression and succession planning?

Questions out of scope
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ALIGNING THE STRATEGY WITH THE BUSINESS PLAN,
FINANCIAL PLAN, BALANCED SCORECARD METRICS

• The Business Plan for 05/06 has been developed
  around the key strategic priorities which are a
  key part of the externally-facing strategic plan
  under development
• The Financial Plan attempts to underpin these key
  strategic priorities, set against a tough
  backdrop of realistic income expectations
• The Balanced Scorecard metrics have been
  developed to try to measure progress against our
  strategic priorities

Strategy
Financial Plan
Business Plan
Balanced Scorecard metrics
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Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map Proposed
metrics for use from April 2005 onwards
Stakeholder
Customer
Increase users positive outcomes
Increase volume of use
Improve user experience
Strengthen relations with stakeholders
Increase public support for BL
C1.1 Items supplied remotely C1.2 Visits to
reading rooms C1.3 Visits to exhibitions in St
P C1.4 Learners attending workshops C1.5
Individual website users served content
provision C1.6 Searches of the Integrated
Catalogue C1.7 External websites linked to the BL
website
C1.8 Visitors to BL learning website C1.9
Visitors to virtual exhibitions C1.10 Learners
attending educational sessions from inner city
schools C1.11 Items consulted in reading rooms
C3.1 Impact of BL on user research reading room
/reference users C3.2 Impact of BL on user
research doc supply users
C2.1 Satisfaction ratings / awareness from
reading room/reference users C2.2 Satisfaction
ratings / awareness from doc supply users C2.3
Customer satisfaction - exhibitions
S2.1 Media coverage of key messages
S1.1 Face-to-face interactions with key
stakeholders
Financial
Increase efficiency
Effectively manage resources
Increase contribution
F2.1 Total headcount F2.2 Unit cost of operating
reading rooms F2.3 Unit cost of document supply
F2.4 Unit cost of selecting materials F2.5 Unit
cost of processing incoming collection items
F2.6 Unit cost of raising and processing an
invoice
F3.1 Total expenditure against approved forecast
F1.1 Trading contribution F1.2 Fundraising
contribution
Internal Processes
Use effective processes to deliver/enhance
services (incl. new services)
Use effective processes to manage the collection
Use effective processes to develop the collection
Key Metrics to be measured monthly/quarterly Met
rics to be measured annually Metrics to be
developed in 05/06 for implementation in 06/07
Metrics with targets for next year.
Developmental work will take place during the
year to improve these metrics there are 4 of
these. Targets which have been included only
because they are in our Funding Agreement there
are 6 of these.
IP2.1 items processed by Collection
Acquisitions and Description against total items
received IP2.2 Average time taken to process an
incoming item Metrics on digital assets will be
developed as systems become established
IP1.1 UK voluntary deposit e-publications
received IP1.2 UK print publications received
through legal deposit IP1.3 Items acquired in
all formats through legal deposit, purchase and
exchange
IP3.1 Doc Supply standard service requests
responded to within 48 hours IP3.2 items
supplied in Reading Rooms within 70 minutes IP3.3
Doc Supply items delivered electronically
Employee Learning Growth
Strengthen values
Develop relevant skills
E1.1 Sickness absence E1.2 Diversity percentage
breakdown vs age/ gender/ geography/ race/
disability E1.3 Measure to demonstrate cultural
change based on people values
E2.1 Percentage use of performance management
process