Professional Development Opportunities

Employees and managers are often frustrated with the actions or inactions of people in their organization, and they do not know how to effect the desired changes. During this webinar participants will learn a few tips and techniques that all employees can use to improve communication and decision-making at any level in the organization. The methods presented in this webinar will not be a “cure-all” to improve every conflict, but you will learn some ways to interact more effectively in difficult situations with the employees you manage or supervisors who manage you.

This class will enable students to create an outline of a digital project management plan for audio visual collections and understand the resources available for next steps. This class will cover the differences in Machine-based AV Collections, review the history of recording devices, and acknowledge preservation issues. Students leaving the class will have a solid understanding of digital audio and video files, modes of capture, best practice for digital audio and video, quality control procedures, storage and preservation issues.

As the world begins to emerge from the COVID19 pandemic’s limits and restrictions and get back to the old way of business, many libraries are allowing staff to continue to work from home as part of the post-pandemic “new normal.” It can seem like a daunting challenge to lead people who are no longer physically in front of you every day but it can also be beneficial and rewarding for both management and staff. In this session, learn how to successfully lead and manage individuals and teams who work in different locations. Acquire the tools, skills, and methodologies that will help you overcome the significant obstacles that are created by managing and working remotely.

Participants will learn about starting a digitization program. The first session covers the basics of project planning, equipment selection, digitization preparation, care and during digitization. The second session covers technical information relevant to getting started with digitization, such as metadata, file format selection, compression, and more. The class also covers quality control, access, and touches upon basic concepts of digital preservation as relevant to small institutions planning digital projects.

Collaboration with faculty is an important and necessary component of librarians' jobs. Working with faculty on assignment design, instruction, student, support, programming initiatives, and research projects are a few of the ways librarians partner. In this session, attendees will be introduced to best practices for working with faculty. Dr. Lauren Hays will share practical examples of how to approach collaboration and how to keep momentum for collaborative projects.

Where are we going and where have we been in preservation, digitization and local history. Archivists, Preservationists, Genealogists and Local historians are engaged every day in the real work of documenting and revealing our past. This work - which is art and science requires great attention to detail, planning and commitment to the voices of the past. It demands endless technologies and continued funding. The breadth and depth of this work is evident in evolving physical and digital spaces. The contributions and impact of this work are immeasurable. It is a footprint that belongs to all of us.

Disaster can strike at any time in any locale, disrupting operations, threatening human safety, and damaging or destroying collections. Having a plan in place before disaster strikes makes good business sense; institutions that view emergency management as critical and provide staff with the authority and tools to plan will ultimately respond more successfully than those that have not prepared. This class is an overview of different steps that cultural heritage institutions can take to be better prepared for a disaster of any size. The sessions cover risk assessment and mitigation, creating a disaster plan, collections salvage procedures, techniques for training staff, and touches on creating emergency response networks.

These days, many libraries are circulating non-traditional objects. From tools to cake pans, circulating these items helps these libraries serve their patrons in new and interesting ways. These non-traditional library items can be particularly challenging to properly catalog. This session will cover many common challenges relating to cataloging three-dimensional objects and offer solutions to these problems.

This 90-minute session will introduce the Library of Congress’s BibFrame project, the “bibliographic framework” that is intended to replace MARC format as a way to encode cataloging information. It will introduce the concept, characteristics, and features of BibFrame, explain its relationship to current standards and practices, and discuss the possible timeline and process for implementation by bibliographic utilities, Integrated Library Systems, and libraries.

We've all heard about Millennials, but what do we know about the next generation, Generation Z? According to the American Marketing Association, Generation Z, or those born at the dawn of the 21st century, are just now starting to enter college and the workforce. How can we prepare to meet these new users and tailor our services to their needs?

The effective management and use of organizational records is necessary and remains a key objective of recordkeeping professionals. This class serves as an introduction for archivists to the management and systematic control of modern records in all media formats. This class is designed to provide an overview of the theoretical principles, methodologies and practical administration of a records/information management program. The professional responsibilities of a records manager working in today’s business, government, academic and nonprofit environments will be examined as well as the fundamental functions and proficiencies of the profession. The role and nature of recordkeeping strategies, techniques, and technologies will be explored. Topics include the nature of records, history of recordkeeping; file/classification/taxonomy management, records surveys/inventories; retention and disposition scheduling, legal and policy matters, records storage and access; industry standards; and business continuity planning. The class also examines emerging technology trends and their impact on the records that archival repositories may acquire.

All of us experienced some level of trauma during the COVID pandemic. In this class, learn how people typically react to trauma, and then think about behavior that traumatized people could bring with them to work. Translate your understanding into specific steps to address and heal COVID trauma. Participants will apply what they learn to their own workplaces during interactive segments of the workshop.

Summer Reading and Learning Programs have been a staple in libraries of all sizes for a long time. As the colder months move in, more libraries are looking to Winter Reading programs and events to keep their patrons engaged. Join us for Winter book suggestions, programs and outreach ideas.

Attendees will be introduced to the basic principles of project management and offered actionable strategies that can help you plan for and deliver successful projects. Learn how to communicate with and rally stakeholders; define and integrate scope, schedule and deliverables to encourage project momentum; and triumph over common project challenges. From project initiation and planning to project closing, project management principles can be used to support effective teams and deliver successful outcomes for your library or archive.

Many library technologists believe that Linked Data can empower the next generation of library metadata services, both by exposing library structured data more widely to applications and users across our networked world, and by providing library systems with access to richer repositories of descriptive data from other sources. This one-hour presentation will explore the technical underpinnings of linked data, the richer user experience afforded by deeper contextual metadata, and some examples and case studies of library applications already underway.

Accessibility must be designed into programs and workflows, and there are many ways that archives and library workers can improve accessibility for everyone. This session will help participants identify ways to make their archives and special collections more accessible, including physical and digital spaces. The instructor will introduce best practices as outlined by the Society of American Archivists’ Guidelines for Accessible Archives for People with Disabilities. Participants will then learn how to assess both physical and digital spaces to common accessibility pitfalls and identify ways they can be addressed.

Have you been tasked with writing policies for your library, but aren't quite sure how to begin?

Well-written, concise policies are the framework that holds your library together and makes everything run smoothly and efficiently, while ensuring fairness and consistency. However, when tasked with writing policies and procedures, many managers find that there's always something more pressing to do. In this session, learn how prepare to write, review, and publish effective library policies.

Instructional videos are a versatile staple of online library learning. In this non-technical session by an experienced instruction librarian, learn the best approaches for designing and creating clear, useful videos for your library learners. We’ll discuss how to apply teaching principles to the video medium, easy techniques for making videos look good without being an expert editor, and how to approach accessibility in video tutorials.

It's time to take a look at some EdTech tools and trends for 2021. EdTech is a beautiful combination of "education" and "technology" that may include hardware and software designed to support teacher-led learning in classrooms and in libraries for increased learning connections.

This class will cover concepts of managing projects portfolio aligned with the institutions’ strategy; governance for portfolio planning and management; assessing the active portfolio and making an informed decision on new additions to the portfolio; and tools for communicating the port-folio progress to the stakeholders and related committees.

This 90 minute introductory course will provide an overview of the origin and purpose of U.S. copyright law and how it promotes creativity, teaching, learning, and research in ways that have become an integral part of everyday life. This session will introduce copyright concepts most relevant to those working in libraries, archives, museums, and community cultural heritage organizations.

This ninety-minute webinar introduces participants to change readiness, a set of practices in which staff develop a new change mindset that shifts the focus from treating every change as a static event that must be managed in order to be accepted and implemented to one in which staff accept that change is a constant, regular practice of the VUCA (volatile; uncertain; complex; ambiguous) environment in which we now exist.

This session will cover the basics of IIIF technology and the current state of development on the specifications, as well as a number of use cases ranging from fun audience engagement tools to bleeding edge uses of the technology in interaction design.

Cemetery Searching may seem morbid; yet cemeteries, headstones, and their corresponding records contain a wealth of information about ancestors and a location's most prominent citizens. This workshop will show participants the types of information found when researching cemeteries, how to locate burial records, and point researchers towards best practices in cemetery research for genealogical and local history research.

Developed as a non-coder’s guide to exhibit best practices, presentation, and promotion, this course will provide students with an introduction to exhibit building using Omeka; one of the more popular platforms for digital exhibits. We’ll discuss how to craft objective and interpretive text with DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) in mind; how to make your audio/visuals engaging; common rights and reproductions issues; and adding elements that draw your patrons in and create a good user experience, like ADA compliant downloadable materials, crowdsourcing applications, and more.

You can’t read the news these days without coming across AI, but what is it, and what can it do in libraries? In this session, we’ll cover some basic definitions of AI (no programming skills required!). Then we’ll explore real-world examples of AI applications in libraries, spanning cataloging, discovery, and community engagement. Finally, we’ll touch on ethical concerns. You’ll leave with a sense of what it takes for a library to do AI and where you can go to learn more.

This class will discuss best practices and current issues in digitizing rare books. The instructor will cover scanning and specialized equipment; post-process and digital authenticity; the need for specific metadata description; and the publication of digital rare book collections. A discussion of common types of rare books and their handling needs, along with third party digitization agreements and donor stipulations, will be included. Finally, we’ll cover how to build dazzling and significant rare book-based digital collections, over time.

Asynchronous teaching -- delivering instruction via guides, pre-recorded video, message boards and other self-guided on-demand methods -- can be a great way to reach busy students and integrate the librarian into an existing online class. Join us for this session that examines the best ways to take advantage of the asynchronous instructional format, what you need to know about how asynchronous online learning differs from in-person, classroom-based instruction, and tools to help make the most of asynchronous teaching.

In this class, participants will learn the basics of determining whether a work has risen into the public domain in the US, either because the copyright term has expired, or because the work is one of the limited categories of works that are not eligible for copyright protection. The class will focus on the types of copyrighted works most frequently found in archival, museum, and library collections, including books, unpublished archival materials, works of art, and scientific data. Participants will learn about tools and resources to help their public domain determinations, as well as ways to communicate those determinations with their users.