AMICAL’s priorities for 2026–2028: AI, cost reduction, peer knowledge exchange and an in-person Conference

What is the AMICAL Consortium working on over the next few years? And how will we be doing that work? Our revised Strategy Articulation Map (SAM) answers those questions and includes revision notes that explain the thinking that led to this new strategy document. In this post I’ll explain what the “SAM” is, summarize what it’s saying about AMICAL’s strategy, and point to a few ways this will hopefully make our work toward strategic goals more effective.

The SAM is our foundational planning tool

The SAM expresses the core elements of AMICAL's organizational strategy in terms of vision, mission and values, while outlining the scope of our work in terms of our member-driven community interests and four areas we’ve identified as strategic priorities. It articulates how those interests and areas are being addressed through consortial actions of different kinds, as well as how different groups take responsibility for the management, execution and governance of those actions. 

AMICAL’s staff and Executive Committee use the SAM regularly throughout the year as a source of guidance on the design, implementation and evaluation of essentially all of AMICAL’s consortial activities. At key moments in the planning of their own activities, individual groups and committees are also encouraged to position their work in ways that support the consortial strategy expressed by the SAM. 

Our approach to this revision

The work on this new version was guided by the following revision objectives, established with the Executive Committee:

• Allow for greater flexibility in the creation and management of member-driven activities and initiatives

• Narrow our strategic focus to a smaller number of areas that combine clear member interest with AMICAL’s actual capacity to provide leverage in the given area

• Make the connections (the “mapping”) clearer between strategic priorities and consortial actions and their governance

• Enable accountability and more effective organization of work on AMICAL’s mission and strategic priorities 

AMICAL’s staff and Executive Committee worked on this revision together from Fall 2025 through Spring 2026, engaging our Representatives and Program Leadership Council in a series of consultations and feedback processes. 

AMICAL’s revised strategy

With the new SAM, AMICAL continues its focus on developing and connecting libraries, technology and teaching at international liberal arts institutions, anchoring this work with the following values and principles:

• Building bridges of open collaboration across our institutions, across the consortium, and across the world

• Focusing on peer-to-peer relationships, enabling in-person exchange whenever possible

• Responsiveness to differing capacities of member institutions

• Social justice and sustainability in our work, pedagogy & scholarship

AMICAL supports a rich array of member-driven communities ranging from library leadership to writing centers to AI initiatives, largely in the form of interest groups that organize online events and asynchronous discussion spaces on our member forum. We’ll continue to support this as our most flexible mechanism for facilitating peer-to-peer contact and knowledge sharing. 

For 2026-2028, we’ll be giving particular focus as an organization, however, to the following four strategic priorities:

• Engaging strategically with AI – developing strategies/guidelines/initiatives that are locally driven, grounded in our institutions’ educational missions, and draw from the joint expertise of librarians, technologists and faculty

• Enabling peer knowledge exchange – build on our existing member-driven communities to develop robust channels for peer consultation and advising

• Organizing the in-person AMICAL Conference – at least every two years, organize the necessary resources and produce an in-person conference on libraries, technology and learning

• Reducing costs for member institutions – reduce costs for library and academic tech resources, and for professional development, through discounts or training grant programs

Implications for groups doing consortial work

When consortial activities develop sufficiently for its organizers to articulate concrete and measurable goals at the level of one year or longer, a Working Group can be formed. More sustained projects and programs may be worked on through a Standing Committee. That group or committee then gets supported in its planning and implementation processes by its chair’s participation in AMICAL’s Program Leadership Council. The Council’s periodic meeting and reporting exercises allow for sharing and peer workshopping of groups’ objectives and plans of action for achieving them. Active participation in those meetings and planning processes is critical for AMICAL staff to be able to effectively support the work of those groups and committees.

AMICAL’s resources in this period consist primarily of staff time and the funds that have been donated toward specific programs like the AMICAL Conference and the Morani Grants program. With this revision of the SAM, we wanted to make it clear that these limited resources will be directed most systematically toward the projects and programs that we’ve identified as strategic priorities. Standing Committees and Working Groups are therefore being more clearly given both (1) responsibility for aligning their projects and programs with AMICAL’s strategy, and (2) the means and support to do so. 

Interest Groups, whose primary activities tend to center on member-driven networking and knowledge exchange through online events and asynchronous forum discussions, have intentionally been given much more flexibility in their creation, management and governance. Interest Groups can be created around any topic or goal supporting AMICAL’s mission, and their activities are not obligated to connect with AMICAL’s strategic planning exercises. 

I hope that this sheds some light on our new consortial strategy, especially for our groups and committees, but also for our institutional Representatives and member colleagues across the consortium. We’ll be following up soon with additional guidelines for groups and committees, but in the meantime members with questions should feel free to get in touch via contact@amicalnet.org.