By ceggett, on October 29th, 2008%
By Linda Fields, Richfield Public Library Director
I received a Professional Excellence Grant from the Utah State Library to attend the Association for Rural and Small Libraries Conference in Sacramento in September. I’ve attended the ARSL conference when it was only being held in Columbus, OH and I felt I gained enough from those meetings to make it worthwhile to attend again.
One of the programs I attended was “Video Games in the Library” by Kieran Hixon. I chose to attend this because I thought “Gaming in the Library? No way!” Sometimes I find it wise to learn about something when I have a poor attitude toward it.
The misconception that gaming is done on the internet was the main basis for my attitude. Over the years, children and internet use has proved a challenge to libraries and it was a challenge I didn’t want to tackle. So gaming is not a new activity. If you think about gaming as internet games, board games and card games, gaming has been done in libraries for years. Continue reading Gaming in the Library
By ceggett, on July 29th, 2008%
American Library Association Annual Conference–2008
Friday, June 27, 2008, 8:30 – 5:00 pm
Competencies for Your Staff: From Implementation to Integration and Implementing a Staff Development Plan
Summarized by: Safi S. M. Safiullah, Reference Librarian, The Salt Lake City Public Library System
The speakers discussed how to prepare a successful staff development day to train competent staff for the libraries. The staff is the foundation of the library; individuals need to improve their skills in technology and customer services in order to serve the public better. Therefore, it is important to measure their skills. The speakers discussed various methods for measuring skills. One of the methods was to organize a conversation café, either quarterly or bi-monthly, where staff will sit in a circle, get to know each other, exchange their knowledge through casual conversation, discuss issues with others, and propagate their success stories. Library management also can send a memo with a questionnaires or surveys to staff to assess their knowledge in various skills such as software packages, listening skills, telephone courtesy, and reference and customer services. The staff will have a chance to rate them as low, moderate or high in each category. Other assessment can also be done by interviewing individual staff, reviewing their performance plans, and observing their skills in the workplace. Continue reading Competencies for your staff
By ceggett, on July 29th, 2008%
By Adam Winger, Utah State University Library
As part of my education in the Library Science program from the University of North Texas I enrolled in a class titled Academic Libraries. The Utah State Library Professional Excellence Grant financially supported my efforts for the class, for which I am very grateful. The Academic Libraries class instructed . . . → Read More: Professional Excellence grant, July 2008
