Information on the policy review process

For those of you who are not familiar with the policy review process. I thought I'd share a little bit of information on how it all works. 

Rotation

We will be reviewing every policy on a three-year rotation. We review two policies per month. A staff committee reviews the policy and submits their proposal to the policy owner and Tim for approval. If approved, the proposed policy will be posted on the intranet before going to the relevant Commission committee for approval. The committee will then propose the red-lined policy to the full Commission for approval. The Commission will approve the policy with an "effective date" of one month or more to give the Library time to draft procedures and notify staff of changes. 

This is a long process with how many policies we have. As such, we tend not to stray from the schedule. So, even though suggestions to change a policy might come up, we will not be able to consider them until that policy comes up for review. That does not mean that we disagree with the suggestions, we just can't address them immediately. 

Review Committees and Policy Owners

Each policy will be reviewed by a committee during the "staff review month". The policy owners will select the review committee members. They will occasionally reach out to Regional Directors or managers for recommendations. The review committees vary and typically include management and staff. 

The policy owners are Lloyd Lovely (Stewardship of Financial Resources policies), Kelley Hoffman (Stewardship of Human Resources polices), and Kay Bauman (AL, AS, and AM policies). There are of course exceptions within each policy section. For example, Janet Brooks or the DCA will be the policy owner of any materials selection policy.

Streamline Policies

One of our prime goals is to remove procedural information that is listed with the policies. The policies will become lean and concise, with step-by-step procedures for staff to be located in procedural documents.

Procedures

All policy changes must be approved by the Commission. Procedures may be added, removed, or updated by library administration, without the Commission's approval. Procedures are indicated by a decimal point in their reference code. For example, AL 350.1 is procedure, whereas AL 350 is policy. As such, procedures are not included in our 3 year policy review rotation. Procedures will be updated as they relate to updated policies or in order to ensure Integrity and Trust in Us and by Us, but they will not be scheduled independently on the rotation. We are still trying to determine the best way to make sure our procedures are up to date. 

Guiding Values, Historical Values, and Fundamental Values

The values' policies will not be included in the policy review rotation.

Staff Comments on Policies

We really appreciate all of your comments on the policies, and encourage you to continue to share your professional opinions on policies. We will review your comments and share them with the review committee when the policy is up for review. As such, your comment might sit unanswered for months before the policy comes up, but don't fear! We will review your comment in due time. We might not be able to implement all of the comments for different reasons and you are welcome to kindly ask why your suggestion wasn't implemented in the comments section of the policy proposal when it is posted on the intranet.