Professional Development Opportunities

Many times, a project fails due to a lack of organization, communication, and planning. Instead of hiring a certified project manager, discover tools and apps designed to keep a project on track. Learn several free(ish) project management tools that can help a team successfully complete the project.

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 session will cover basic knowledge to help librarians, archivists, and other staff in archives and special collections advocate for integrating course-based undergraduate research experiences into curricula at their institution. Benefits and challenges of CUREs will be discussed using case studies to illustrate concepts.

Learn how (and why) to find, identify, and adapt open educational resources (OERs) for use in online guides, tutorials, and instruction sessions. We’ll discuss the benefits of OERs for learners, how to talk about OERs with your faculty in course planning, and some studies of how OERs affect teaching and learning.

Canva is a popular platform for creating flyers, posters, presentations and more. Join us to learn some quick and easy tips for utilizing the best new content from Canva. Get ideas for making graphics for your programs, websites, emails and social media marketing.

Crisis situations arise in all types of libraries and impact users and staff. Information professionals must be prepared to handle situations that can include drug overdoses, sexual assault, neglect, and mental illness, and that can have social, psychological, medical, and legal aspects. Students will explore the issues and possible resolutions to social crisis management.

Libraries across the nation created and launched many Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) initiatives in recent years. These initiatives have been applied in all areas of the library, including cataloging and technical services.  Attend this conference to see these efforts moving from proposal to practice. This Amigos Library Services online conference will examine EDI in action today in cataloging and technical services.

While U.S. copyright law changes slowly, what does change is how we think about the application of that law to situations in our libraries. This webinar will use common scenarios to discuss the application of fair use in academic libraries, including digital lending in a controlled environment (a.k.a. CDL), the use of digital resources, interacting with students and faculty on fair use in photocopying, and much more. Basic copyright information will be provided, so that everyone enters the scenarios with similar knowledge. There will be time for participant questions throughout.

What makes an image a "good" image? How can image quality be measured in a standards-compliant, repeatable fashion? Digitization consumes resources, and there only may be a single opportunity to convert certain collections; how can we make sure that it is done in accordance with the relevant guidelines and that the digital assets created will endure over the long term? This series of five webinars will examine the Federal Agency Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) as it applies to still imaging for cultural heritage institutions. After an overview of FADGI, we will spend time reviewing each of its core metrics in detail, and share hands-on and practical applications of these metrics in real digitization projects.

Successful library signage brings new patrons into the library and assists them in finding needed information. Unsuccessful library signage is often unclear, cluttered, or ineffective. Improve patrons' experiences with guidance for evaluating library signage from the context of user experience and customer service

Unconferences and unmeetings are participant-driven events for knowledge building. These formats can be highly effective for library staff members looking to generate ideas, address long-standing concerns, and develop ways to engage the community. In this session, we’ll learn how to facilitate an unconference or unmeeting, how to determine if these formats are appropriate for the question at hand, and how to avoid common pitfalls.

What makes an image a "good" image? How can image quality be measured in a standards-compliant, repeatable fashion? Digitization consumes resources, and there only may be a single opportunity to convert certain collections; how can we make sure that it is done in accordance with the relevant guidelines and that the digital assets created will endure over the long term? This series of five webinars will examine the Federal Agency Digitization Guidelines Initiative (FADGI) as it applies to still imaging for cultural heritage institutions. After an overview of FADGI, we will spend time reviewing each of its core metrics in detail, and share hands-on and practical applications of these metrics in real digitization projects.

EDI (Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion) organizational self-assessment tools provide ways for libraries to examine and assess EDI initiatives for adoption and improvement. These resource tools help staff identify and develop personal areas for EDI growth. This session focuses on 10 current organizational and individual EDI self-assessment tools for application in libraries.