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Reference Services Review
Emerald Article: Scenario planning for the future of reference: five white papers posit the future and raise the bar for us all Sarah Barbara Watstein

Article information:
To cite this document: Sarah Barbara Watstein, (2003),"Scenario planning for the future of reference: five white papers posit the future and raise the bar for us all", Reference Services Review,Vol. 31 Iss: 1 pp. 36 - 38 Permanent link to this document: http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/00907320310460889 Downloaded on: 06-12-2012 References: This document contains references to 2 other documents Citations: This document has been cited by 2 other documents To copy this document: permissions@emeraldinsight.com This document has been downloaded 1130 times since 2005. *

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Scenario planning for the future of reference: five white papers posit the future and raise the bar for us all
Sarah Barbara Watstein

Scenarioplanning in action
In many ways, ``The future of reference services'', the Reference and User Services Association's (RUSA) standing-room-only program at the 2002 American Library Association's Annual Conference, represents scenario planning not only in action, but at its best. Presenters were asked to share and discuss their ideas on the future of reference services and what that future might mean toall reference staff and managers. Participants were invited to join the presenters in this exercise and were given the option of reading papers online or printing them and reading them. They were also given the option of responding to the papers. Before proceeding, it is important to define the concept of scenario planning and speak to why I believe it is important to examine these five whitepapers in this context. In the Introduction to her book Scenario Planning for Libraries, Giesecke (1998) defines her subject:
Scenario-driven planning is one planning technique that lends itself to today's uncertain environment and offers managers a flexible approach to viewing the future. In scenario-driven planning, managers develop scenarios or stories to design possible futures. Using thesestories, managers can then design strategies that will help move their organizations forward. Scenario-driven planning helps managers identify their assumptions about the future and the organization, describe their own mental models of the future, and then use that information to review and renew the organization.

The author Sarah Barbara Watstein is Director of Academic User Services, and Head ofthe James Branch Cabell Library, VCU Libraries, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, USA. Keywords Libraries, Scenario planning, Organizational learning, Reference services Abstract Provides an examination of conference papers as illustrations of scenario planning in action. Includes a summary of each author's understanding of whether or not reference service has a future, and...