Designed to provide managers with a basic introduction to the planning components and procedures involved in planning for library automation, the overview provided here offers guidelines for eight documents that may be produced as part of such a study: (1) Automation Project Long Range Plan (60 Month Plan), an executive summary document providing basic descriptive information about the proposed project; (2) Cost/Benefit Analysis Report, which documents the various automation options available to the library and the levels of services and benefits offered by each; (3) Cost Allocation and Governance Plan (Multi-Institution Projects), which identifies options for each variation of each model identified; (4) Automation Project Justification Report, which is based on the results of the cost/benefit and cost allocation/governance reports; (5) Data Conversion Cost Analysis and Plan, which evaluates various approaches and their related costs; (6) Project Task Inventory and Implementation Schedule, which includes task staffing assignments and task alternative paths; (7) Project Budget Plan, which includes cost type and amount, division of the cost over time, and source of project income; and (8) Telecommunications Cost Analysis and Plan, including data communication models, cost vs. performance factors, growth potential and technical obsolescence, ownership of telecommunications hardware/software, and allocation of telecommunications costs. A checklist for documenting the costs of automated library systems is attached. (BBM)