My mission, should I choose to accept it.

A couple of months ago I went to a workshop and one of the things that stuck in my head was the idea of having a mission which could be expressed in one memorizable sentence. That's been fermenting in my brain, more or less subconsciously, ever since. A week or so ago, a mission blossomed full-formed (I love when my mind does this work for me) without any effort on my part. Here it is:

IxE³=The Horicon Public Library (Inspire. Enrich. Educate. Empower.)

Now, whether we would ever consider that an official mission, or if it's just a first iteration of what could become a mission, or if I never think on this again, I still feel that my subconscious did a great job. Because this is exactly what I feel my job is about.

Some of you may scratch your head. "I thought your job was to check out books to kids" you may be thinking, "and maybe have a few programs when you have some spare cash lying around." Yeah, well, NO. Actually I've been saying for years that our mission is to bring people together with ideas, whatever the medium of the idea is (books, movies, music, Internet, programs, conversation, whatever.)

But actually the WHY of wanting to bring people together with ideas is critical--thus this mission. I want to bring people together with ideas so that they are inspired, enriched, educated and empowered. That pretty much covers it all, doesn't it? What do you think? If you could dream up a mission for the library what would it be? If you could dream up a mission for your life, what would that be? (I'm thinking mine would be the same for my life, actually).

--ms. shannon