From the President of RUSA: A New Strategic Plan for RUSA

Abstract

In the fall of 2014 the RUSA leadership embarked on a strategic planning process intended to position our organization for strength and growth over the next few years. In beginning of the process we first needed to confront a challenge: that RUSA—like many professional organizations and indeed many ALA divisions—has experienced declining membership since the economic downturn of 2008, which placed economic pressure on librarians and caused many to question whether to continue association memberships, and if so, how many associations our budgets would allow us to join. For many of us, the bottom line is that we must see value in our association memberships, and receive excellent products and services in return for our investment. Recognizing this, the strategic planning team asked what our members most value in RUSA, and how we can strengthen it while minimizing bureaucratic inefficiencies and eliminating activity that does not benefit our members.