Professional Development Opportunities

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.

There is one skill that is seen in virtually every interaction with a library patron - conducting a reference interview. In this Know & Go session, learn about the art of the reference interview. We will discuss behavioral characteristics of reference service providers, the steps for conducting an effective reference interview, strategies for when a reference interaction goes wrong, and tips on how to assess your reference interactions.

“Plain language” is a term from the legal field: federal law requires that government agencies are required to use clear communication that the public can understand and use. As online teachers, we can take advantage of the set of clear guidelines and best practices that has grown up around this requirement. The federal plain language guidelines are fully in line with web usability recommendations, and can help streamline and clarify our online teaching. Whether you’re writing for a library website, a tutorial, a research guide or some other format, you’ll learn how to make your materials more accessible to the widest possible audience without dumbing them down.

Cultural heritage institutions enjoy a very special status in the U.S. Copyright Law. Copyright is meant to further the “Progress of Science and the useful Arts,” and Congress has built in specific limitations and exceptions that provide additional flexibility to libraries, archives, museums and other cultural heritage institutions. These limitations and exceptions are what allow us to confidently engage in interlibrary loans, digitization, making copies for blind or print disabled users, teaching with copyrighted materials, displaying objects from our collections, such as artworks, and even lending items from our collections to other institutions. While critical for our work, these specific limitations and exceptions are based on complex statutory language that can be difficult to decipher and apply. This program aims to help participants understand the landscape of copyright limitations and exceptions, and gain the necessary skills to apply those limitations and exceptions for the benefit of their users.

This session is designed for anyone who is currently involved (or wants to be involved) in marketing library resources and services or using social media. The session will provide an overview of library market planning, types of marketing, and social media development. Brief examples of successful library social media marketing will be provided.

This workshop will introduce the most powerful features of OpenRefine using a sample bibliographic dataset. Participants will be encouraged to install the tool on their own computer prior to the workshop, and follow along. We will conclude with a short discussion of use cases: participants are welcome to share examples of datasets from their own work practice that need to be cleaned up and discuss how OpenRefine can help with this process. There are no particular prerequisites for this session. Familiarity with Regular Expressions can be useful in applying more advanced text matching functions, but is not required.

OER Advocacy Crash Course will prepare attendees to implement OER advocacy campaigns on their campus. The class will focus on advocacy communication centered on audience, messaging, and framing. Attendees will be presented with communication best practices and examples of student advocacy initiatives to inspire actions that best fit their institutional context. This interactive presentation will equip attendees with basic advocacy communication skills and encourage attendees to take action by leaving the session with established actions to implement at their institution next week, in one month, and in six months. Attendees will be provided with an advocacy campaign worksheet that they can begin to complete during the class or later as “homework” when developing plans for actions on their campus.

Are you interested in linked data? Do you feel like you have the theory down, but want to get some hands-on practice creating linked data? Sinopia is a free, web-based tool that will help you get your feet wet with linked data creation. Attend this session to learn how to create templates, enter data, and link your data to other vocabularies. You'll walk away with some practical knowledge of linked data and a sense of how libraries are using Sinopia.

Course-based undergraduate research experiences (CUREs) provide students with an opportunity to learn applied skills while tackling original research questions. These experiences go beyond a typical analysis paper and instead focus on research as an iterative, collaborative process. Special collections librarians, archivists, and other staff working with rare and unique collections can advocate for CUREs to enhance undergraduates’ learning experiences and closely collaborate with course instructors. This can draw undergraduate students into special collections and support more engaged, creative uses of archival and special collections.

This four-hour class, which will be offered online in two-hour increments, focuses on preparing for and writing grants for digitization and/or preservation projects. The class covers the grant writing process from start to finish. Starting with finding funding opportunities, moving on to writing a proposal, through the grant review process, and finally covers grants administration and promoting grant-funded projects. The class also addresses collaborating on grant projects. General grant writing information can be applied to grant opportunities from a range of different funding agencies, but the focus of examples given in the class is on the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), since they are major funders for a range of institutions.

In this session you will learn the skills, techniques and strategies to plan, lead and participate effectively in meetings of all kinds. From impromptu, on the spot discussions between colleagues to formal presentations and meetings with committees, departments, and/or library stakeholders, you'll be better prepared to get the most out of your time, staff and company's dime.

According to the Alzheimer's Association, more than 6 million Americans in 2021 are living with Alzheimer's or another dementia. Libraries, as trusted institutions, play a critical role in community education, partnerships, advocacy and support of people living with dementia and their caregivers. This Know and Go explores ways to become a dementia friendly library and support a dementia friendly network in your community.

When it comes to cataloging and classification, consistency obtained through standards is important. That does not mean you have to be at the mercy of the national standards. This presentation will cover many ways in which you can adapt catalog records to make sure they work for your library users – from homegrown classification systems to local subject headings – and offer tips to make sure these practices still provide the consistency needed in a good catalog.

ORCID (Open Researcher and Contributor ID) is a digital identifier used to distinguish a researcher and their work, therefore making it easier for librarians, faculty, and researchers to keep a current list of writings, grants, and other professional activities.

In this session, we'll learn more about ORCID, how to set up your own ORCID ID, and explore how libraries can be involved with encouraging researchers to use ORCID to connect their work.

It's a challenge to keep up with technology trends. It's time to revisit the technology trends of 2021 and look at predictions for 2022 trends. We will discuss the impacts for libraries and ways to engage our communities. Identify ways to incorporate new technology trends into your library programs.