Broadening Our Impact
The University of Iowa Law Library created its 2024–2029 Strategic Plan through a collaborative, multi-stakeholder planning process under the theme of Broadening Our Impact. To gather feedback, we used a combination of surveys and meetings with Law Library staff and other stakeholders and collaborators focusing on three pillars: collections, community, and communication.
The Law Library's strategic plan will help ensure that our actions continue to align with our mission and guiding vision. We invite you to engage with our plan as we create a Law Library to meet the needs of present and future researchers and learners.
Mission Statement
The University of Iowa Law Library has two complementary missions focused on present and future legal information seekers:
- To support the domestic, international, comparative, and foreign legal research, scholarship, and teaching of both a traditional and interdisciplinary nature that occurs in the University of Iowa community at large.
- To support the legal research needs of the public, the Iowa legal profession, and Iowa government offices by curating and preserving legal information resources.
Guiding Vision: The Beacon of the Prairie
The University of Iowa Law Library aspires to guide present and future legal information seekers in the pursuit of answers, new questions, and untold stories.
We provide one of the very best places in the nation to conduct legal research, as the repository of one of the two or three largest and most comprehensive collections of such resources among all public and private law school libraries in the nation, and as a premier educator of its patrons on legal research methods.
We initiate and support strategic partnerships to enrich our communities, inspire innovation, and protect and make accessible legal information.
We pursue, support, share, and preserve law, legal information, and legal scholarship created each day for researchers in the present and into the future.
We develop and engage a communicative and curious staff of experts to meet and anticipate service needs.
We strive to be a distinctive, memorable, and beloved part of our expansive community.
Strategic Directions: Pillars and Priorities
Collections
Community
Communication
Collections
Intentionally build and steward unique collections. Sustain and protect distinctive resources while providing services to bridge the gap from questions to answers.
Priority 1
Engage in systematic evaluation of our collections to expand access and preservation and to undertake digitization efforts to identify items that can be made available freely for all.
Priority 2
Support the development of deep subject matter expertise and skill in collection development and collection maintenance.
Priority 3
Ensure library spaces, physical and digital, function to highlight and enhance collections.
Priority 4
Explore service opportunities to connect information seekers to the resources they need.
Community
Lead with curiosity. Invite others to co-create library services, spaces, skills development, and educational offerings that both respond to and anticipate needs.
Priority 1
Leverage legal research knowledge and information seeking expertise to serve the community's research and education needs.
Priority 2
Mentor and create future generations of library professionals.
Priority 3
Build on existing partnerships and seek out others with aligned objectives to explore ways to engage and serve more members of our communities.
Priority 4
Develop and invest in library space accessibility and improvements designed to further collaboration, learning, and community building.
Communication
Increase awareness. Engage and connect with those whose work, research, and lives would be enhanced by our expertise and collections.
Priority 1
Strengthen outreach and communication with our expansive community while recognizing the challenges of reaching those who already feel overwhelmed by information.
Priority 2
Highlight the Law Library’s work to increase awareness of its existing and future operations and impact.
Priority 3
Enhance discoverability of services and collections, physical and virtual.
Priority 4
Engage in scholarly discourse and convene gatherings focused on the values of accessibility and preservation of legal information.
Moving from Plan to Action
Since 2021, the Law Library has structured staff discussions and change management around six bricks:
These bricks frame the information we share and help everyone understand the purpose of new initiatives and how they fit into the larger library scheme. Bricks form the foundation of our communication and culture, and, from them, we will incorporate our priorities to build out the three pillars of the strategic plan.
As a library staff, we will use both staff and team meetings to undertake the following steps:
- Develop annual goals and tactics in alignment with the priorities of the strategic plan.
- Identify and implement methods to measure and assess our progress and impact.
- Distribute information annually demonstrating our efforts and the progressive impact of our work.
Building on these pillars requires sustained efforts and dedication to Broadening Our Impact.