At its fall meeting on November 4, the TDL Governing Board adopted a set of four Strategic Directions for Academic Years 2025-2028.
The Strategic Directions were drafted by the TDL Strategic Planning Task Force, which was charged by the Board in Fall 2023 with developing new strategic directions that articulate actions needed to achieve TDL’s vision of becoming “a nationally recognized leader as a provider of essential, equitable, and sustainable infrastructure for libraries and cultural memory organizations” and for “transforming society through the radical broadening of access to valuable research, teaching, and cultural heritage materials.”
This task force was led by board member Diane Bruxvoort (University of North Texas Dean of Libraries) and composed of Kristi Park (TDL Executive Director), Courtney Mumma (TDL Deputy Director), Adrian Shapiro (Texas Woman’s University, Digital Initiatives and Assessment Manager), Posie Aagaard (UTSA AVP for Collections & Curriculum Support), Bethany Scott (UH Head of Preservation and Reformatting) and Dr. Catherine Rudowsky (Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs).
The task force conducted a survey of the membership in spring 2024 to gather information about the needs of our members. Those results, coupled with information provided by TDL executive staff, pointed to four areas of work that provide focus for TDL over the next several years, articulated in the four Strategic Directions listed below.
Direction #1: Elevate Digital Library Experts
Offer meaningful opportunities for the professional development of member librarians, archivists, and staff in areas relevant to digital library practice and leadership.
Direction #2: Cultivate Connection
Provide opportunities for libraries and library workers to activate community networks, offer mutual support, and find opportunities for cross-institutional collaboration.
Direction #3: Empower FAIR Data Sharing
Support Open Access and Open Science through the maintenance and expansion of research data services offered via the Texas Data Repository.
Direction #4: Preserve Long-term Access
Help libraries preserve their valuable digital collections for future generations, through Digital Preservation advocacy, readiness activities, and distributed storage services.
Our four strategic directions articulate a path forward for building out TDL’s service suite and programming in specific ways. Though not explicitly articulated in these four statements, TDL also maintains its commitment to strengthening and maintaining other core services like DSpace repository hosting, Vireo development, and Open Access journal hosting, which are essential to its mission of supporting Open Access to research, cultural heritage, educational resources and other digital materials.
Over the coming months, TDL will operationalize these high-level strategic directions as concrete objectives and provide updates to the community as that work progresses.
Questions or comments about the TDL Strategic Directions can be directed to TDL at info@tdl.org.