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Introduction
Libraries and information services are the treasuries of knowledge and of memory ([17] Lerner, 1998). Since their origins they preserve the cultural heritage and at the same time they try to satisfy the needs and expectations of their users. Their role has been significant in the transmission of knowledge and of information, in scholarly communication, in promoting reading and furthermore in helping people to be useful community members. In that context, the library and information service presupposes certain organization and management strategies. A strategy promotes consistent behaviour over time so as the library could be able to adapt to the new circumstances. Strategic planning aims to "disperse uncertainty" ([21] Pacios, 2007), and thus guide libraries within the complex environment they operate.
A quite extensive historical analysis of the structure and evolution of the strategic management field over the last 26 years is provided by [10] Furrer et al. (2008): the practice of strategic management has gradually shifted from financial planning in the 1950s and earlier to long-range planning in the 1960s and to the strategic planning in 1970s, and finally to strategic management in the 1980s and onwards. Over the last decades the rapidly changing environment generates a new dynamism and a severe competition that need to be taken into account. Therefore, strategic management thinking, in order to be pragmatic, must accommodate the current turbulent environment rather than the quite unlike long stable environment. A strategy is defined by [19] Matthews (2005) as a guide for future action that focuses on the whole of the library rather than on its individual operations, and he further argues that "strategies are about making choices and deliberately choosing to be different". The relationship between strategic and operational programming is complementary, with the latter supplementing the former ([1] Ackoff, 1968). The strategic plan is a "communication tool among all interested parties" ([22] Rowley, 2006). Overall, long term planning expresses the library's organizational and management culture, as well as the professionalism of its employees ([20] Pacios, 2004). Nowadays, the tradition and role of the libraries are widened through the introduction of novel information technologies, new information services for all groups of user categories, the forming of reading policy in a hybrid (both digital and conventional) environment, collaborations with...