Many thanks to everyone who submitted a written response, commented via this blog or attended a meeting or focus group session during the last fortnight.

The written submissions are available from the main Information Futures web site.

Over the next 10 days we will revise the strategy and seek further input from the University’s senior executives and from the Information Futures Commission’s Steering Committee.

The completed strategy will be presented to the 26 June meeting of Academic Board for endorsement, then to the 14 July meeting of University Council.

An implementation plan will be presented to the Planning and Budget Conference at the end of July.

1. Progress Report from the Commission’s Steering Committee
2. Melbourne’s Information Future: one possible strategy

The documents outline the Commission’s work to date and describe some long-term options for the University’s library, archive and cultural collections; research data management; IT support for research activities; collections of information created for learning and teaching purposes; scholarly outputs such as theses and journal articles; and the support services and human capabilities required to create, acquire, use and manage all of these.

The documents are available for downloading from the main Information Futures web site, or in a ‘commentable’ format on this weblog (see the “Progress Report” and “Draft Strategy” links in the navigation bar at the top of this page.)

We encourage you to read and comment on the documents.

Of particular interest are the five “strategic questions and difficult choices” identified in the Progress Report:

1. What type of library or libraries should we have?
2. What should be in the libraries?
3. Who can use our libraries?
4. How ‘open’ do we want to be?
5. How should we organise ourselves to achieve our aspirations?

Ways to respond

• Read the Draft Strategy on this blog and leave your comment/s on the relevant pages
• Download the documents from the main Information Futures web site (where you will also find lots of background information about the initial consultation phase and its results)
• Send your comments to the Commission’s project team
• Invite a member of the project team to speak to your committee or group meeting

Deadline for comments

The review period ends on Friday 6 June.

What happens after 6 June

Your feedback will be used to refine a 10-year strategy for the University’s scholarly information and technologies.

The revised strategy will be presented at the June meeting of Academic Board and the July meeting of University Council.

A funding proposal will be submitted to the Planning and Budget Committee’s mid-year conference.