12 BMU: Proper Planning
Despite some missteps early on in her role as RDS Librarian, Dr. Carol Quinlan soon found herself settling in to her new position and gaining some familiarity with her team, her office, and the university in general. One of the most important things for her to understand was that these things take time. Even though she was eager to jump right in with both feet, she learned that she could get more done in the long run by taking things slow and steady, and setting reasonable and purposeful goals for herself and her team. As such, she decided to hold off on planning a host of new workshops and training sessions until she had a solid plan in place that was created through consultation with many key people involved.
As Dr. Quinlan looked at the calendar and thought about what she wanted to work towards, she started to feel a bit foggy and lightheaded at the prospect of all that was ahead of her. In addition to taking things slow, she also decided to start from the top and work her way down rather than beginning with workshops and building up from there. She wrote down some big-picture goals that she had in mind for her RDS program:
- Raise the level of data stewardship throughout the Library
- Reach out to every college on campus to build relationships and find areas of need
- Plan workshops and trainings that would benefit BMU faculty
In order to avoid some of the issues that she previously encountered regarding the Data Carpentry workshops, she scheduled a meeting with her department head to discuss these goals and see if they would be adequate and achievable for the fledgling RDS program.