The Business of Libraries: An Interview with Mimi Calter, Deputy University Librarian at Stanford Libraries

From the Stanford Libraries Blog:

Mimi Calter is Deputy University Librarian at Stanford Libraries, where she directs strategic planning, manages capital and departmental projects, advocates for library programs both locally and globally, coordinates outreach to faculty and advisory groups, and keeps policies compliant with current copyright and patron privacy laws. In this interview, Mimi discusses a strategic approach to these issues and how her career at Stanford has presented opportunities to grow and to learn.

The interview conducted by David Jordan, Annual Giving Office, Stanford Libraries consists of seven questions and responses.

Here’s one of the seven.

How do you approach and implement strategic planning?

Stanford Libraries, like Stanford itself, is very entrepreneurial, and we sometimes struggle to focus on single specific goals.  I wanted to start at the top by ensuring that the Stanford Libraries senior staff have a shared vision of the library’s purpose and are agreed on our high-level programmatic goals.  I coordinated a series of meetings over the last year, in which the Directors have developed three programmatic goals:

• Access: Accelerate knowledge dissemination by making curated collections, people, and space accessible and discoverable
• Community: Build connections and foster a supportive, stimulating, and inclusive environment within the Libraries and with our research and teaching communities
• Stewardship: Preserve and steward cultural and scholarly heritage in a digital age in support of research, teaching, learning, and cultural enrichment

These three goals provide a framework that we can all use in assessing any of the myriad projects that might fall in any one of those areas.  We can then make appropriate decisions about where and how to allocate resources.

Direct to Complete Interview

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