Strategic planning for libraries

If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans.
Woody Allen

John Crowley asks on the TeacherLibrarin Ning (and to me in a personal e-mail):

I would like to start a discussion around the ways you approach the need to develop a plan for your Library. I have been asked to update my book Developing a Vision: Strategic Planning and the Library Media Specialist and would like to write a book that would offer suggestions for in-depth and "dirty and cheap" planning for your library. I would be willing to share my experience with four different iterations of strategic planning. More important, I would like to see what others do to prepare their libraries to thrive in these turbulent times.

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My response

I wonder if the term “strategic” is intimidating to many practicioners? I know it is the accepted term and an important concept, but it does sound pretty scary, formal and labor intensive. Anyway to combat that perception?

My own writing about planning doesn’t use the “s” word and is probably less formal (and less effective) than your approach. You can find my writings on the topic at:

Plan and Report to Build Program Support
What Gets Measured Gets Done
Maslow and Motherboards

I’d suggest addressing these important questions in your revision if you haven't done so already:

• How do we tie library planning to building/district planning and goals?
• How do we work with the technology folks to design coordinated plans?
• How do we make the measurement our impact on student learning part of our planning?

Not sure if this is helpful or not, but there you go.

All the very best and good luck with the re-write.

Doug

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OK, readers, please leave John some suggestions about what you would find helpful in a book about strategic planning either here or on the TeacherLibrarian Ning.

Strong passwords, weak security

D7B3BE289B1020A8A1D25FFC74

That's the password to log on to our WEP encrypted wireless access in one of our district's meeting rooms. With one or two changed characters, of course.

I've always had a suspicion that the requirement for a "strong" password really creates more security problems than it solves under most circumstances. Strong passwords require a minimum number of characters (12-14), need to be a combination of numbers and upper/lower case letters, and often need to forced-changed on regular basis.

Which all leads normal people to write them down and hide them in a convenient place - top desk drawer, under the desk calendar, on a sticky note adhering to the monitor...

The rationale for strong passwords is they are harder to discover if one runs a fancy password-guessing program to crack a computer security system. These programs rapidly try all common words and names in an attempt to gain access.

So the question I have to ask is: Which is more likely: a middle school student having access to a cracking program or knowing that passwords can be found under the teacher (or parent) desk blotter?

There are compromises that involve mnemonic clues to remembering strong(er) passwords:

• add a date to a child's or pet's name (sammy411)
• substitute numbers or symbols for letters (r0o$evelt)
• create an acronym (1itln - one is the loneliest number)
• write the password down but with a change in a single character that one can actually remember

None of these are recommended by an computer security expert, I am sure. Be thankful I don't work for the CIA.

Social hacking remains the number one computer security threat, at least according to the things I read. If you call someone and say you are from so-and-so security firm and are conducting an audit and need to verify his/her password, a high percentage of people happily divulge that information.

At last count, I have 54 different programs and websites that require a password for either school or work. I have them all stored in a password-protected database on my computer. Were a person able to obtain access, horror or horrors, s/he would be able to see my frequent flier miles, credit card and bank balances (both embarrassing), and edit my school web page. There are some benefits, sigh, to living a dull life.

So how do you create passwords that are difficult to guess but easy to remember? What are the practical rules for passwords schools should establish - and teach to kids?

Cob web pages

My secretary was a little steamed at me last Friday, a situation that in itself is not all that unusual. But the cause of her distress was interesting. She had purchased school supplies for her grandsons only to find that some of them were not actually required. How was this my fault?

Turns out that she was using an old school supply list from our district website. Last year's list, of course, differs from this year's list. And being tech director and all, it was my responsibility for keeping everything on the web up-to-date.

I did immediately send an e-mail out to all staff, asking them to take a look at their school websites to make sure they reflected the 2008-09 school year, not the 2007-08 year.

Or the 1998-99 school year. Sigh...

If anyone knows of a great method for reducing the number of "cobweb" sites a school displays on its website, I'd sure like to know about it.  We have been ambitiously promoting a greater web presence for our schools and every teacher for quite some time. (See Teacher Webpages that Build Parent Partnerships) We've provided resources so that pages are easy for teachers to create and maintain. What we haven't found is way to help remind teachers (and administrators and secretaries and coaches and tech directors and ...) that the information on them needs tending now and then.

I've always thought that if I were a programmer, I would write a little script that would cause a sign to pop up on a person's computer screen at random intervals that reads "YOUR HARD DRIVE JUST CRASHED. WHEN DID YOU LAST CREATE A BACK-UP?" Maybe I could use the same program to also say, "A PARENT JUST ACCESSED YOUR WEBSITE. WHEN DID YOU LAST UPDATE?"

Any programmers out there? I'll split the profits with you.