Strategic Plan
Pendleton Community Public Library Five-Year Plan 2025-2029
The five-year strategic plan guiding the Pendleton Community Public Library through 2029 is an outward-facing plan, with the goals and objectives focused on patron and community needs.
Southern Madison County is growing. The Town of Pendleton alone has seen an increase in population of roughly 27% over the past four years. Generally speaking, the library has been keeping up with the growth by providing necessary services and space. However, new residents have specific needs that the library would like to help them meet. In particular, families immigrating to the United States have specific needs such as the need for English language classes or assistance in obtaining citizenship.
The library has a logo, but not a brand. This is becoming increasingly obvious as the library amps up its programming and sees that promotion is not always identifiable as “the library.” To get the maximum return on the investment in programming, the library has to do a better job creating a recognizable brand and using it to reach a broader audience.
Technologies are ever-changing, and it is necessary to consistently evaluate the multitude of software applications, services, and technology resources that the library utilizes and makes available to patrons. The website needs to be updated and modified to ensure ADA accessibility. Online promotions need to be streamlined for consistency. Staff wants to maximize the potential of Microsoft 365 which it just migrated to in late 2024. And, AI isn’t looming on the horizon anymore. It’s here, and the library needs to assess how it will impact services and attempt to embrace it as a useful tool and a helpful companion to all aspects of information science.
Loneliness is officially an epidemic, and people are suffering. It’s hard to forge relationships if there isn’t a catalyst to facilitate meeting new people. The library can be that catalyst. By starting new clubs, hosting activities, and designing programs specifically intended to foster social connections, the library can help alleviate this epidemic one person at a time.
The existing Arabian Readers partnership has been one of the most successful and exciting library partnerships in the past two decades. With its resurgence in 2024, the working committee is realizing new opportunities to work together to benefit the student population in the years to come.
And finally, as South Madison continues to grow, and libraries continue to evolve, it will become time to truly evaluate the library’s services and how those services are delivered to the local population heading in the 2030s. A new strategic plan will be on its way and funding will need to be secured to meet the goals in that new plan.