Learning to Plan on Library Island
June 6-7, 2019
University of Toronto iSchool
June 6-7, 2019
University of Toronto iSchool
U of T iSchool Symposium
June 6-7, 2019
Learning to Plan on Library Island!
Come play, learn and problem solve on Library Island. Library Island, created by Matt Finch, is an activity which simulates five years in the life of a nation’s library services. Participants become librarians, government officials, academic faculty or students, community members or partners on this island and face the challenges created by conflicting wants, needs, and limited resources. There is an Indigenous community and colonial history to be reckoned with, plus a range of political interests with their own agenda for the library. Once players have played a round of “Library Island” to get used to the game, it can be adapted to any institution which serves a community, including hospitals, museums, and places of learning.
All our communities are living on new islands, dealing with new technology, new social structures and behaviours, as well as legacy ones and lots of future uncertainties. How do you plan or help others plan in such an environment? This two day event, populated by experienced consultants willing to share their processes, provides several frameworks and many tools to help you do just that.
Thursday June 6th
9 am Greetings from Wendy Duff, Dean, U of T iSchool & organizers.
9:10 Warm-up & Connections
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Building rapport, making teams, solving practical library problems.
Scenario planning and looking at plausible futures.
10:00 Mapping Relationships
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Looks at the ecosystem of clients, partners, and stakeholders; identities the wants and needs of both parties in a specific relationship.
10:30 Break
10:45 Using Your Imagination on Library Island
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Play, create and experience a variety of roles, identify challenges and opportunities, examine systemic problems as well as individual decisions made during the scenario.
12:30 Lunch
1-2:30 Hard Questions
Small group discussions look at such questions as: What are the characteristics of a successful strategic plan? What makes this different from an operational plan? What are the biggest obstacles for planning in your organization? How do you deal with them? If you could change one thing about how your organization plans, what would it be?
2:30 Break
3-4:30 Return to Library Island
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Participants apply techniques from the previous sessions, their own planning experience and
ingenuity, to a specific scenario focused on strategic planning. Teams each create and then compare their own responses to the scenario.
5:00 End of the program for the day
5.30 Continue the Discussion: After Program Conversation & Networking
Friday June 7th
9:00 Facilitator’s Welcome
Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones Associates
9:05 Planning Practitioners
From a large public library, to a community college and academic library, hear from our practitioners about their processes, successes and challenges in planning their organization’s futures.
Tanis Fink, Director, Libraries & Learning Services, Seneca College
Elizabeth Glass, Toronto Public Library
Mark Robertson, Brock University
10:30 Break
10:45 Designing Paths & Goals
Peter Morville, Semantic Studios & Author, Planning for Everything: The Design of Paths & Goals
We can't predict the future, yet we do it all the time. We organize projects, events, days, weeks, and years. We plan to buy a home, build a career, travel, get married, raise children, teach a class, retire, or get in shape. Our ability to model the world as it is and might be is a gift, but mental time travel is also really hard. Fortunately, since planning is a skill, everyone from playful improviser to rigorous planner can greatly improve, if they are ready to learn:
12:30 Lunch
1:45 Practical Planning Techniques
Matt Finch, Mechanical Dolphin
Peter Morville, Semantic Studios
A look at other tips & techniques to use in planning! Not to be missed.
2:45 Break
3:15 Library Island Encore
Includes time for any unanswered questions about planning!
5 pm End
June 6-7, 2019
Learning to Plan on Library Island!
Come play, learn and problem solve on Library Island. Library Island, created by Matt Finch, is an activity which simulates five years in the life of a nation’s library services. Participants become librarians, government officials, academic faculty or students, community members or partners on this island and face the challenges created by conflicting wants, needs, and limited resources. There is an Indigenous community and colonial history to be reckoned with, plus a range of political interests with their own agenda for the library. Once players have played a round of “Library Island” to get used to the game, it can be adapted to any institution which serves a community, including hospitals, museums, and places of learning.
All our communities are living on new islands, dealing with new technology, new social structures and behaviours, as well as legacy ones and lots of future uncertainties. How do you plan or help others plan in such an environment? This two day event, populated by experienced consultants willing to share their processes, provides several frameworks and many tools to help you do just that.
Thursday June 6th
9 am Greetings from Wendy Duff, Dean, U of T iSchool & organizers.
9:10 Warm-up & Connections
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Building rapport, making teams, solving practical library problems.
Scenario planning and looking at plausible futures.
10:00 Mapping Relationships
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Looks at the ecosystem of clients, partners, and stakeholders; identities the wants and needs of both parties in a specific relationship.
10:30 Break
10:45 Using Your Imagination on Library Island
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Play, create and experience a variety of roles, identify challenges and opportunities, examine systemic problems as well as individual decisions made during the scenario.
12:30 Lunch
1-2:30 Hard Questions
Small group discussions look at such questions as: What are the characteristics of a successful strategic plan? What makes this different from an operational plan? What are the biggest obstacles for planning in your organization? How do you deal with them? If you could change one thing about how your organization plans, what would it be?
2:30 Break
3-4:30 Return to Library Island
Matt Finch, Consultant, Mechanical Dolphin
Participants apply techniques from the previous sessions, their own planning experience and
ingenuity, to a specific scenario focused on strategic planning. Teams each create and then compare their own responses to the scenario.
5:00 End of the program for the day
5.30 Continue the Discussion: After Program Conversation & Networking
Friday June 7th
9:00 Facilitator’s Welcome
Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones Associates
9:05 Planning Practitioners
From a large public library, to a community college and academic library, hear from our practitioners about their processes, successes and challenges in planning their organization’s futures.
Tanis Fink, Director, Libraries & Learning Services, Seneca College
Elizabeth Glass, Toronto Public Library
Mark Robertson, Brock University
10:30 Break
10:45 Designing Paths & Goals
Peter Morville, Semantic Studios & Author, Planning for Everything: The Design of Paths & Goals
We can't predict the future, yet we do it all the time. We organize projects, events, days, weeks, and years. We plan to buy a home, build a career, travel, get married, raise children, teach a class, retire, or get in shape. Our ability to model the world as it is and might be is a gift, but mental time travel is also really hard. Fortunately, since planning is a skill, everyone from playful improviser to rigorous planner can greatly improve, if they are ready to learn:
- The principles and practices of nonlinear planning.
- How to grow and sustain hope with willpower and waypower.
- When to pivot or persist with paths, goals, values, and metrics.
- How myths, memories, fears, and feelings shift the future.
- Why the plans of an octopus are the product of evolution.
- Why artificial intelligence is poised to transform how to plan.
12:30 Lunch
1:45 Practical Planning Techniques
Matt Finch, Mechanical Dolphin
Peter Morville, Semantic Studios
A look at other tips & techniques to use in planning! Not to be missed.
2:45 Break
3:15 Library Island Encore
Includes time for any unanswered questions about planning!
5 pm End
- Rebecca Jones, Dysart & Jones https://dysartjones.com/rebecca-jones/
- Matt Finch, Mechanical Dolphin https://mechanicaldolphin.com/
- Peter Morville, Semantic Studios https://semanticstudios.com/
- Stephen Abram, Federation of Ontario Public libraries and Lighthouse Consulting, Inc. http://www.fopl.ca http://www.stephenslighthouse.com
- Jane Dysart, Dysart & Jones https://dysartjones.com/jane.dysart/
- Tanis Fink, Director, Libraries & Learning Services, Seneca College
