UPLIFT grant: Utah Library Assoc. Conference

admin — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 20:34:47 +0000

Utah Library Association received an UPLIFT Organizational Resource grant from the Utah State Library in 2009. About 400 librarians and library enthusiasts attended the annual conference, “Utah Libraries: Turning up the Volume.”

Four presenters were sponsored, in whole or in part, by the grant:

Norma Blake, NJ State Librarian, LJ 2008 Librarian of the Year, ULA keynote speaker, “Libraries Surviving Tough Times”
Joyce Saricks, “What we didn’t learn in library school”
Celia Ross, “Making sense of business reference”
Grace Mary Gouveia, “Collecting and supporting local history”

Here’s what attendees said about the programs:

Confidence building
Exceedingly interesting
She (Joyce Saricks) was amazing.
Great ideas and how-to with a small staff
Dr. Gouveia was very interesting–good choice for a presenter
I will share this info with my library’s other reference librarian
I can serve our community’s needs better because of this training
Norma gave a wonderful presentation about coping in today’s world
Celia was great! Excellent speaker with great useful information and sources
I enjoyed learning from this very knowledgeable and competent presenter. She is very good at explaining complex info in an understandable way. I would recommend her returning in the future for additional presentations.

What do you want from me???

Colleen Eggett — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 00:43:17 +0000

I am interested in what training you want in the next couple of years.

Please take this short survey or comment below.

As a result of the last survey, we trained to all of the top topics. Here’s what you said, in order by the most requested, and when we offered it:

# 1. Community support for your library (taught Oct. 06 & March 08, Rural Library Sustainability & Turning the Page)

# 2. Library space planning (taught 4/28/08, Mary Bushing)

# 3. Grant writing (taught 2006-08, 9 sessions, Rose Frost)

# 4. Book Repair (coming 3/09, 3 sessions, Scott Simkins)

# 5. Children’s services (taught March/Apr 08, 2 sessions, Janell Mattheus)

# 6. Long range planning (taught 2007/08, 3 sessions, Colleen Eggett & Rose Frost)

Competencies for your staff

Colleen Eggett — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 20:00:23 +0000

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.

Data found from the measurements can be used to determine where the staff needs to improve their skills. The library management needs to review the outcome of the assessment and divide them into different categories. Each topic needs to be researched before these can be included in the training plan. During staff development day, a flexible training session can be organized, in which staff would be trained by various trainers. The trainers can be brought from outside the system, from state or local libraries, or from within the library system. The trainers should be flexible in their methods. Besides their presentation, there should be hands on activities and exercises, where staff gets hands-on practice. The staff should be given chances to discuss their issues and a collective solution should be carefully implanted by the system.

The speakers discussed in detail how to write a staff development plan, and then distributed samples of these plans from various library systems. Lively discussions took place when speakers defined the staff development and training is a “continual process that orients, trains, and develops each individual throughout his/her association with the library.” The library should do as much as possible to improve the employees’ skills. However it is also widely agreed that it is the “responsibility of each individual to assess his/her needs and seek opportunities for personal growth.” In order to have a successful staff development plan, the presenters suggested that the library needs to form a staff development committee (SDC) with a clear vision and mission. The responsibilities and duties of the library administration, staff development committee members, continuing education coordinator, department heads, supervisors, and staff members were discussed as pillars to the success of the staff development plan.

The main Speakers were: Cal Shepard, Solinet, Thomas W. Galante, Director; Queens Library; Betha Gutsche, Curriculum Developer, WebJunction, Lori Reed, Training Specialist, Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, Catherine Vaughn, Continuing Education Coordinator, Lee County Library System and Pat Tavis, Consultant, Pat Tavis Consulting and a few others.

I will also include some of the references and resources that were distributed during the session:

Books and Journals:

Abella, Kay T. Building Successful Training Programs, a Step-by-Step Guide. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley, 1985.

Brier, David J. and Vickery Kaye Lebbin. “Laulima: Staff Development, Hawaiian-Style.” (Oct. 2001) 46-48.

Creyh, Sheila D. Effective on the-Job Training. Chicago: ALA, 1986.

Staff Development: A Practical Guide. Prepared by the Staff Development Committee, Personnel Administration Section, Library Administration and Management association, ALA; coordinating editors, Anne Grodzins Lipow and Deorah A. Carver. 1992.

Websites:

ABLE http://libraries.idaho.gov/able

CDT http://www.lib.az.us/cdt/

Dynix Institute http://www.dynix.com/institute

InfoPeople http://infopeople.org/WS/ (archived webcasts and training materials)

LearnThat http://ww.learnthat.com/default.asp

LibraryU http://learning.libraryu.org/home/

ORE http://www.olc.org/ore/index.html

SABLE http://libraries.idaho.gov/sable

STAR http://nlc.state.ne.us/ref/star/star.html

TSLAC http://www.tsl.state.tx.us/ld/projects/slmtp/index.html#onlinetutorials

SOLINET http://www.solinet.net/workshops/workshop_templ.cf?doc_id=728