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Showing posts from November, 2010

Mission [Statement] Impossible

Usually conferences leave me feeling revitalized and invigorated. Today? Not so much. I left this afternoon appreciating just how much I have left to learn. I might excel in some areas of being a librarian, but in others? Ouch. We’ll save the most painful realizations for another post. Today, I’m just going to focus on why I hate mission statements: They’re always really dense Who the heck bothers to ever read them? They’re a dumping ground for jargon and edu-speak Needless to say, developing a mission statement for my library program was never a high priority. I probably would have continued to avoid it had I not attended today’s session. It took a fair amount of mental arm-twisting, but ultimately we came up with one. It was a team effort – contributors included myself, an elementary librarian, and our district’s technology director. Our goal was two-fold: write the shortest mission statement possible and make it understandable for elementary AND secondary students. Her