Mission Statements: Useful or useless?

Mission statements are odd creatures. They can be very useful, guiding an organization and keeping them focused. Or they can be written, slapped on a website or a wall somewhere and forgotten. In the case of my old pal, Characteristics of Programs of Information Literacy that Illustrate Best Practices (which I will be calling Best Practices from here on out to avoid spilling any more unnecessary screen ink), a mission statement is the first step in having this best practices program. I agree, as long as it doesn't become just another thing that is overlooked on the library's website.
The Best Practices document says the mission statement should include lots of different things including:

• A definition of IL
• Benefits to all constituencies
• Relevant lifelong learning options for all
• Statements related to the mission of the university and other institutional documents

Whew! Instead of diving into all that right away, I did what any good reference librarian would do and Googled for other schools' IL mission statements. I'll share these today and next time start addressing these bullet points for our university.

Palo Alto College- seems to have all the elements, but I hope ours is shorter
Carnegie Mellon University- I like this one a lot. It's concise, with all the relevant information.
Pierce College- Home to information literacy superstar Deb Gilchrist, this one is simple but effective and appropriate to the institution.
University of Southern Maine- This one brings in lifelong learning and USM goals and related documents. They don't call it a mission statement, but this is the one I'd most closely like to emulate.

Of course, there are lots of others, but this is a sampling to start with. Next time, I'll compile some UNCG-specific statements and start figuring out how to create a draft of this thing. Should be fun!