Trending
YOUNGSTOWN -- The Public Library of Youngstown and Mahoning County board of trustees has voted to accept a proposed contract with a firm to assist the library system with assembling and implementing its five-year, 2027-31 strategic plan.
During its service and personnel committee meeting Tuesday afternoon at the Newport branch on the South Side, the board voted 6-0 to hire Fort Collins, Colorado-based ReThinking Libraries, in partnership with HBM Architects and Interior Designers of Cleveland, to work with the PLYMC on the plan to see what long-term improvements and changes the library system may require based largely on community needs and input, and to be adopted to fit a region with a nearly steady population.
"The team will help us through this process," Aimee Fifarek, the PLYMC's chief executive officer and director, said.
ReThinking Libraries was selected from a pool of eight proposal submissions in two rounds. The top-ranked ones were invited to virtual interviews with the PLYMC's steering committee in late June, and were scored on their responses to "weighted" questions.
ReThinking Libraries, founded in 2020, is a national library consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning, organizational transformation and future-ready library services, and works with library systems nationwide.
HBM Architects was established in 1976 and is a nationally recognized firm that focuses primarily on library design and planning work. For the PLYMC's strategic plan, HBM is to serve in a supporting role to ReThinking Libraries, with a focus on community-engagement efforts and helping to provide expertise related to the library's facilities master plan.
According to its literature, ReThinking Libraries lists as its premise developing a two-tier approach: a generalized high-level plan that outlines focus areas, goals, desired outcomes and impacts, and an annual action plan. The first plan guides the latter one to further focus on necessary details and tactics needed to implement the strategic plan's first 12 months that include timelines, data being measured, budget impacts and other metrics being developed, with a heavy emphasis on input.
The proposal will probably require six to eight months of planning before that aspect is likely to wrap up in early 2027, Fifarek explained, adding that the process got underway in March.
It was important to hire the Colorado-based firm partly because outside experts are needed to gauge what the local community may seek in the system and use that data, along with residents' feedback, to develop a plan that includes such information. The move also can serve to bring the community together as well as to reach measurable goals, Fifarek said.
At points, the plan likely will be tweaked, modified or changed in certain areas to reflect possible changes in library funding and resources, she added.
During the session Tuesday, the board heard virtual presentations from three ReThinking Libraries representatives who offered their pitches regarding why they felt the company would be the best fit to partner with the PLYMC to formulate the plan. The three of them also fielded a variety of questions from board members.
"Our responsibility is to help the PLYMC educate its public, generate ideas and solutions, and develop a plan that reflects its community members and the future," ReThinking Libraries' literature states.