Library Mission Statement Haiku

At my new and wonderful place of employment, we are working on mission statements for the entire library and each department.  I asked each of my staff to brainstorm by coming up with three words that represent what we do or what we should be doing as a service unit within the library.  Then I asked them to craft mission statements based on the brainstormed words. Guess what?  Everyone had excellent suggestions!  Even so, I was struggling to come up with something that hit the nail on the head and sounded good.  Just google "mission statement" and "public library" and you'll see that struggle in action.  I'm a freak for lyrical language and, boy, are there some clunkers out there.

I was talking to a non-library friend about this exercise and he asked, "Staff needs to have that articulated?  Isn't your mission statement to just 'act like a library?'"  Were I a bit more quick-witted this morning, I might have asked "how do you expect a library to act?"  But, yes, I think we do need to articulate our mission to ourselves every once in awhile.  It wouldn't hurt to check it against user expectations, come to think of it.

After looking at dozens of other library mission statements, it occurred to me that the longer the mission statement, the narrower it seemed.  If you craft a mission statement that ends up being a catalog of specifics, what really stands out is what is missing. How can you possibly squeeze everything in?  I decided to boil it down and give myself a strict format to work with.  Thus was born the Mission Statement Haiku . I was being a bit silly, but it really was a very useful exercise and I think we have something close to a keeper. 

Our mission is to
Collect, share, promote, learn, grow.
Users are foremost.

I have a mentor who insists that all library professionals should have their own personal mission statements that drive and inform their work life and philosophy. It was one of those things I never quite got around to.  What about you?  Can you sum up your mission in 17 syllables?  Give it a shot and I promise to work on mine as well. 

Comments

[Michael Golrick]

I go away for a really long weekend (doing Scouting stuff....and my son was there), and look at the great stuff you post!

I'm going to steal this!

[rochelle]

Genius, Matt! Shame on me for missing such an obvious point. Thank you. I'm glad we're still working together. ;-) Did you tell me about your swell, pretty blog? If you did, obviously, I spaced it out. Will point to it soon. Verrrry nice! http://youthtech.wordpress.com/

[Matt]

Our mission is to
Collect, share, promote, learn, grow.
Users are foremost.

I like it. Are "users" or "people" foremost? "User" indicates those who consistently come in for service; whereas, "people" leaves the objective open to those we aren't reaching for some reason or another.

[Laura]

I'm in the "we help people find stuff" camp of mission statements, though, I must admit, that is not lyrical or 17 syllables or my library's actual mission statement.

[Brian]

Years ago, I read something by business writer/consultant Dale Dauten in which he mentioned his idea of the perfect mission statement: "We help."

My personal haiku would probably be something like this:

I will try to help,
As long as you're not acting
Like a big asshole.

[Michelle McLean]

That is beautiful in its simplicity. I would love to have that as our mission statement too, but (sigh) its not to be.