Category Archives: IFLA Congress

Knowledge Café 2014: Next wrap-up

Here`s the next wrap-up of the table Creation of staff training and development teams.

Creation of Staff training and development teams
Moderator: Vivian Lewis, McMaster University
Raconteur: Juanita Jara De Sumar, McGill University

The group was presented with some base information and offered the McMaster University case as an example of successful implementation.
Participants discussed the benefits of having a strategic plan in place before the training programme is established. The value of having a clear sense of need was also identified. (In the McMaster case, ClimateQUAL data illustrated a strong need for training and an anonymous survey indicated what kinds of sessions staff wanted and how they wanted the content delivered.)
It was argued that a committee requires a library of a certain size, as otherwise there will not be enough people to take or deliver sessions. Many participants noted the value of bringing experts in from outside the library.
Soft skills (interpersonal skills, etc.) were identified as very important. In choosing trainers it may be necessary to offer everybody the opportunity to apply.
There was strong agreement in all three groups that staff must take some ownership of their own development. Staff must take an active role and apply what they have learned and the team must assist everybody. In reality, we find that some people expect the organization to make decisions for them in terms of what they need to learn.
We also discussed possible obstacles. Staff may be suspicious of the Administration having a hidden agenda. For the team to work, it is necessary that staff be confident and trust the committee leaders.
Another topic was the level of power of the committee. The team can be purely advisory, with management making the ultimate decisions. The group can simply coordinate the training or it can do the actual delivery. (In the McMaster case, the group did a mix of coordination and delivery.

They organized the purchase of Lynda.com, scheduled webinars, peer-to-peer sessions and guest speakers. Specialists from the Continuing Education unit were brought in to do project management training.)
Some of the comments suggested that resources could be used from the local library school. And it could be a good idea to provide some sort of continuing education certification.
Most participants in the first round remained for the second round and continued contributing to the discussion. All three rounds were lively and informative.

Juanita

Knowledge Café 2014: Learning Challenges for Librarians and Library Managers

Dear colleagues,

CPDWL thanks all moderators, rapporteurs and participants of the Knowledge Café last week in Lyon, France. From our point of view it was a very successful session with much more participants as we expected even at this last afternoon just before the Closing session.

And as we promised we will upload more information like the wrap-up of rapporteurs because the time for these was very limited at the end because of your vital discussions before.

And of course we hope to get your comments and feedback about the subjects but also the format and setting. We already started to evaluate the session and hope for your input, too.

Here`s the first wrap-up of table

“User Involvement as a Learning Tool”

Discussion around how to incorporate feedback from library users into providing training for library staff was challenging!  Many participants who visited this discussion table focused on the topic of how to obtain user feedback (e.g., through focus groups, surveys, social media, one-on-one interviews, etc.) but found it more difficult to provide specific examples of how to incorporate user feedback staff training at their institutions.

However, several examples of successful initiatives included:

1.  One library created role plays or vignettes based on user/customer feedback and interactions that was used to spark discussion in staff training focused on customer satisfaction and service.

2.  A large urban library created a Chief Information Office that, among many other responsibilities,  conducted face-to-face interviews with library users and produced a report that was shared with library administrators and discussed during staff training.

3.  Another library hired an external consultant to create a structured community engagement process that solicited user feedback.  This feedback was then incorporated in the library’s master facilities plan (identifying libraries to be renovated, consolidated, closed, or re-purposed).

4.  There was some discussion of “appreciative inquiry” as a tool in staff training to help identify what employees are doing well and were improvements can be made.  One library incorporated the use of appreciative inquiry in designing a new library building.

5.  One public library took user feedback as an impetus to create a library maker space that was used for staff training (as well as public use).

The general consensus was that because all library staff members are engaged in communicating with users it’s critical to provide employees with the training and tools needed to this effectively.  One of the more difficult tasks is to find new and creative ways to obtain feedback from non-users in addition to those who regularly patronize their libraries.    We know from experience that today’s customers are increasingly demanding opportunities to provide their input into how library services are delivered and what programs and services are offered.  Finding ways to incorporate customer feedback into preparing our employees to successfully meet user demand can only improve the quality of staff training.

 

 

OCLC Report: At a Tipping Point: Education, Learning and Libraries

The report explores the information consumer’s behaviors, beliefs and expectations for online learning.

In detail:

•Habits and perceptions of online learners
•Expectations for the future of online learning
•Top-of-mind perceptions of a college education
•Factors influencing the college choice
•Library use by online learners—on campus and online
•MOOCs—a massively interesting case study on the future of education
•The library brand
•Implications and opportunities for academic and public libraries

So don`t miss the CPDWL session 95 about MOOCs in Lyon 18 August 2014 11:45 – 13:45 | Room: Forum 1!

http://www.oclc.org/reports/tipping-point.en.html

Update Taking charge of your career Workshop

The Summary of the topic:

 How to connect: using social media

Moderator Anne Lehto, Head of Services Tampere University Library, Finland,

e-mail: anne.m.lehto@uta.fi

 

In the workshop, there were 6 groups attending this round table one group at a time. We discussed the possibilities and challenges of using social media as a tool for professional development. Social media was defined widely in this session meaning different types of communication using web 2.0 technologies which enhance collaboration and include the aspect of interactivity.

 

1) How to use social media at your library?

 

There was an interesting IFLA offsite Social Media Workshop by Academic and Research Libraries that took place at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore on 16 August. The theme was Social media strategy in academic libraries – Implementation experience at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Libraries. Some participants in the round table had attended the workshop as well. At NTU it was learned that NTU library had impressively hired 200 students to create social media content. The programme and presentations can be retrieved from http://blogs.ntu.edu.sg/ifla2013/programme/

 

Furthermore, examples of the use of social media in University library context are numerous, see e.g. Mervi Ahola’s (a social media savvy colleague) prezi-presentation: Social Media in the Work Practices in Tampere University Library:
http://prezi.com/usxhzlwhyf7-/tampere-university-library-and-social-media/

 

2) In the workshop, the most common social media tools/technologies (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, blogs, wikis, Linkedin…) were discussed from the point of view of their usefulness to enhance professional development.

 

It turned out that Facebook was used more for personal purposes than for professional ones; however, there were also participants who shared their experiences of using Facebook to get information about current issues and for informing their professional network.

 

On the other hand, blogs were commonly used for professional development purposes. Also, Akademia.edu and Researchgate, http://www.researchgate.net/ were mentioned as major professional development networking tools. 

 

If you are a new professional or a life-long learner, don’t forget IFLA New Professional Special Interest Group’s (NPSIG) blog,http://npsig.wordpress.com. In the blog you will find interesting webinars which have been recorded and are available on the site e.g., “New Librarians Global Connection: best practices, models and recommendations“ is a new series of free quarterly webinars on issues of interest to new librarians, models of library associations and library schools working with new professionals, and groups by and for librarians. The free webinars are presented by IFLA Continuing Professional Development and Workplace Learning  and IFLA New Professionals Special Interest Group in partnership with the American Library Association.

 

LinkedIn was regarded as an increasingly more important platform for professional development. Other important role of LinkedIn is that it is used for the companies’ recruitment purposes. Thus, keeping your profile up-to-date is necessary if you want to become recognized by the potential head hunters. Technically, you can make your profile more complete by adding your photo, your CV, skills and your areas of interest. We discussed that the more contacts you have in Linkedin – the better it seems, and the more international contacts you have – even better. Do you disagree?

 

Your contacts in LinkedIn may endorse you for your skills. However, even people who have never met you in real life are able to endorse your skills, as LinkedIn actively invites you to endorse your contacts. The value of such endorsements is therefore controversial.

 

3) To sum up, there are multiple social media technologies and tools applicable to networking to enhance professional development. As both working time and spare time is limited, you don’t need to adopt them all. Still, it is worthwhile being curious and trying some social media technologies especially as they are mostly freely available. If you don’t get what you expected, just try some other technology that might fulfill your expectations better.

 

PS. Meanwhile you read this summary, some social media technologies that before were freely available may have turned fee-based or completely disappeared. It is certain that there are still some unexplored technologies that you can use for purposes you might not even know yet.

 

CPDWL Workshop Taking charge of your career in Singapore

Dear participants of the yesterday`s workshop,

we hope you enjoyed the workshop of CPDWL about Taking charge of your career as much as we did. But we kindly need your support in answering some questions to continue successfully:

1. Do you think the workshop was useful for you?

2. Did you like the format?

3.Did you miss anything?

4.What can we do better?

5. How should we continue?

6. Do you have any recommendations for future needed topics at workshops within the cpdwl field?

Thank you for your support and we will upload achievements and content to our website, blog and facebook page soon.
http://www.ifla.org/cpdwl
http://blogs.ifla.org/cpdwl/

Please stay in touch and have a safe trip home!
Best regards
Catharina Isberg and Ulrike Lang, Co-Chairs of CPDWL Section

CPDWL Workshop in Singapore: Taking Charge of your Career

Taking Charge of Your Career

Workshop
IFLA WLIC, Singapore 2013
Wednesday Aug 21, 11.45-13.45

See new brochure designed by Catharina Isberg, below. Also, kindly distribute to your lists and social media!

Taking_charge_career_timeanddate

I am also linking to a blog entry from Ulrike Lang describing the workshop:

CPDWL is happy to welcome you to the roundtable session Taking charge of your career in Singapore during the IFLA Conference.

We`ll start with the lecture Competence wheel: strategic, personal, communicative and professional technical skills, presented by Catharina Isberg, Communication coordinator of CPDWL.

The tables will give attention to:

1. Intercultural competencies for the international floor.  How to behave and react with international counterparts?  Intercultural competence doesn`t mean to resolve differentess but to use it.  We will discuss different behaviours, gestures etc. Host: Ulrike Lang

2. What to do to be published, whom to contact.   Publishing can take many forms – for example blogging, writing book reviews or conference reports, and presenting conference papers. This table will showcase some IFLA options which increase the reach of your work – writing for IFLA and Emerald journals and books. Host: Eileen Breen

3. How to prepare your papers to be published. Publishing papers can advance your career: Learn strategies for getting your interesting results and important best practices published.  This table will cover how you identify the right publication, write for your audience, and present your content for publication. Host: Sandy Hirsh

4. Gap analysis (Self managed career).   As the self-managed career is replacing the traditional career, librarians need to take contol of their own destinies.  Learn tips and techniques for planning the career that you want. Host: Margaret Law

5. Personal skills and competencies. Personal skills are the foundation in leadership as well as in employeeship, where you lead yourself in your daily work. In order to understand other people, you need to understand yourself and your actions. Host: Catharina Isberg

6. How to connect: using social media. Social media – looking at strategies to use social media to continue your professional development or how to manage your own social media profile to enhance your career. Using different social media to network with others in our profession or with our clients. Host: Anne Lehto

7. Internationalizing your career.  Getting the international into your career: hear about strategies for developing cross-cultural competencies and multicultural awareness. Host: Susan Schnuer

8. Alternative career.  Librarians possess many transferrable skills that can be used outside of a traditional library. How do you identify them? What types of jobs are possible? How does one find and obtain these jobs?  Host: Monica Ertel

9. Jump starting career. Learn how to maximize your investment in your personal development. 10 essential education and career resources to help you strategize powerful moves. Join our discussion of a practical shortlist of resources to help you start making connections to continue moving forward. Host: Loida Garcia Febo

10. Professional ethics.  At the library workplace we are challenged by ethical dilemmas quite often. Main issues are free access to information/censorship, privacy, equitable services for everyone… How do you become aware that you are facing a dilemma? How do you treat ethical conflicts? How can professional ethics help you to solve an ethical conflict?  Host: Hermann Roesch