The Dreams of the Reasonable:

At North Carolina State University, a biennial planning process integrates the plans of all academic and administrative units on campus, including the Libraries. Further, the biennial planning cycle has been coordinated with the budgeting process, so budget requests must be tied directly to priorities stated in unit plans. This paper describes the incentives for instituting university planning and how it was implemented during its first cycle and improved during the second, with particular emphasis on libray planning. The authors recommend linking planning to an existing decision-making process, cultivating good relationships and close communications between the university and the library levels, maintaining a proper perspective on planning, and using the plan for education and promotion.