Professional Development Opportunities

If you're not yet where you want to be in your life and career, what's holding you back? Most of us know the steps we need to take to move up to the next level, but often something gets in the way. And quite frequently that's obtaining "permission" to succeed. The hold-ups can come from many sources; let Dr. Cindy McGovern help you navigate these internal channels, and challenge the inner voices that govern our lives. Whether your biggest goals are professional or personal, Dr. Cindy's strategies will make your permission mission a successful one.

Information literacy involves multiple skills, including: identifying where information comes from, evaluating claims and evidence; identifying bias; and researching for additional information. Join Library of Congress education specialists as we apply information literacy skills to historical primary sources from the Library’s collections. We’ll practice these skills together and reflect on how they may be used in your educational settings.

Join the 2021 Gale/LJ Library of the Year (Anaheim Public Library, CA) along with the honorable mention libraries, (Loudoun County Public Library, VA and Sacramento Public Library, CA), as they examine the transformation libraries have experienced in recent years, and the roles equity and workforce support play.

Princeton University Library’s chemistry and geosciences collections support library users interested in hydrology, geology, climate, ecosystems, and biodiversity research associated with the Department of Chemistry, Department of Geosciences, and the High Meadows Environmental Institute (HMEI). This session will provide an overview of print and digital resources available for the geology, groundwater aquifers, oil and gas, uranium, mining activities, environmental issues, ecology, biological activities, cultural heritage sites, and historical geographic names within the Colorado River Basin. From 2008 to 2018, Emily worked at the USGS Denver Library in Colorado where she helped researchers, librarians, and communities navigate natural hazard and natural resources publications, as well as real-time and historical rock, mines, water, drought, flood, environmental, wildfire, and wildlife data for the Colorado River Basin. Prior to joining the Princeton University Library in 2018, Emily worked for the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) for about 23 years as a hydrologist and librarian (physical scientist).

At every level of your organization, the last year-plus has been, without exception challenging for everyone. Over this summer, we in libraries have begun to make plans to return to “before times” tentatively, but can we go back to the way things were, or should we be looking forward to a very different future from our recent but distinctly solid past. The opportunity to rebuild or restructure in this new environment is daunting; thoughtful, intentional action needs to be at the forefront of this work. In this presentation, we will look at different areas of the library, including services, teams, and leadership, where long-term change could benefit the organization. The changes instigated through recent quick actions and decisions made during the pandemic offer the opportunity to explore what we should continue to do or do differently, and what new organizational needs have surfaced that require our attention in what will eventually become a post-covid workplace.

The Charleston Conference is planning a very special “In Between” half-day virtual mini-conference event to explore important late-breaking developments that can’t wait til November for discussion!

As online education continues to evolve, it is important to learn from stakeholders who are highly experienced in the field. While some recent literature (e.g. Mansbach & Austin, 2018) has explored the online faculty experience, less research has investigated the perceptions of faculty with several years of experience in online environments. The Oregon State University Ecampus Research Unit (ECRU) is contributing to this literature with the Long-Term Instructor Project. Members of the ECRU have interviewed 33 faculty from diverse disciplines at Oregon State who have taught online for 10 years or more. This presentation shares results from the first four studies that have come out of the Long-Term Instructor Project. These results have useful implications for online faculty development.

As libraries and cultural heritage organizations continue to acquire and digitize cultural and historical treasures, in the hopes of making them available to the general public, it is important to create quality descriptive metadata to increase the visibility of content. Creating quality metadata is a time-consuming process, and not all organizations may have enough metadata experts to describe the content quickly & accurately. This talk will discuss using Machine Learning technology to simplify descriptive metadata generation for historical images. I will share information about the current technology landscape, with a particular focus on the tools, techniques, and outcomes of the related projects.

This four-part webinar series works with the Teaching Technology in the Library course offered by the Nebraska Library Commission. The course is designed to help libraries connect communities with technology and digital skills that matter at home, work, school and everywhere in between. The webinar series will introduce the topics and framework used in the course.

Learn about the information resources produced by the U.S. Coast Guard Academy that document its historical and contemporary instructional and research missions. Gain knowledge about Coast Guard historical resources and how, as a branch of the U.S. military, the Coast Guard is becoming increasingly involved in global security matters in arenas such as the Arctic Ocean and South China Sea, which may result in it having to engage in military action against hostile actors.

Join RightsDirect and Rohan Consultancy for a complimentary one-hour webcast with Michael Healy, Carlo Scollo Lavizzari, and Geetanjali Visvanathan that explores Indian copyright law and global copyright challenges.

In this feature-packed webinar, panelists walk attendees through a range of case studies that detail the experiences of five unique libraries as they adjusted to their new working environments and which of those adjustments are being carried forward as long-term policies and strategies for a post-COVID world.

Gain insight into key strategies that Summon customers employed from in-person to virtual learning to better reach patrons and promote their library resources in the online environment.

Are you a reluctant weeder of your collections? Or are you a vigorous wheelbarrow bringer (cart filler)? Or do you fall somewhere in between?

Hear briefly from two librarians sharing their perspectives - one is a new librarian with their first collection, the other has lost track of all the collections managed over a 20+ year career. Together, Leslie Rewis and Shawna Thorup teamed up to weed their sections of NWACC's collection this summer, completing a task that had been neglected for five years..

Historically, academic libraries at US institutions have not worked to deliver or shape course content on campus, leaving that to the bookstore and faculty. While libraries kept books on reserve, they did not move further into the course content space.

However, in the last few years, libraries have begun to take a larger role in delivering course content to help students and institutions navigate the new trends in higher education. This change has been driven by several factors, including the rise of open educational resources (OER), difficulties curating OER, the rising costs of college attendance, and the COVID-accelerated push toward digital content.

Want to learn more about the collections of the Library of Congress from the experts who work there? Join us for the second installment of our online open house! Rotate through short sessions (15 minutes each) on specific online resources, tools, and collections of interest. Plan to share some of your ideas for classroom use across the curriculum. Tentative Library participants include the African and Middle Eastern division; Asian Division; Copyright; Geography and Maps; Hispanic Division; American Archive of Public Broadcasting; Performing Arts; Prints and Photographs; Poetry and Literature; Science and Technology; and the Veterans History Project.

In order to better serve our library users, librarians need to think more creatively when assisting a user with a research topic.

In this webinar, librarian Christopher Brown goes beyond thinking about what resources to search and focuses on how to think about searching, sharing real search examples to illustrate the points made.

Concerned about climate change but not sure what you can do? Help your library "go green" by leveraging the secret super power of small, rural and under-resourced libraries everywhere: the make-do mindset! Forget LEED building certifications, we’ll show you how your library can adopt systems that align your shoestring budget with tips on everything from sustainable programming practices, operational approaches, environmental partnerships, as well as easy (and cost-saving!) eco-friendly swaps based on the experience of one library’s mission to be a community leader in reducing its environmental impact.

The instructor-centered method adopted by the STEM field with its emphasis on Eurocentric values is not always conducive to addressing achievement barriers for diverse students in the online classroom. This session will challenge the assumption of depleted cultural capital for students of color and explore a new theoretical framework and its application to online teaching practices.

South Carolina Conference on Information Literacy (SCCIL) aims to inspire and educate information professionals to become effective instructors utilizing pedagogical/andragogical theories, best practices, and teaching strategies to promote academic excellence and lifelong information literate learners.

This year the theme is Reshaping the Future of Instruction!

Are you asking the right questions at the end of your eLearning course? Are these questions closely tied to the learning objectives? Do you include application-based questions in the assessment? If the answer to any of these questions is ‘No’ or ‘Not sure’, join Dr. Pooja Jaisingh, as she talks about the best practices for writing effective assessment questions for your eLearning courses.

She will share some good and bad examples of assessment questions along with an easy-to-use format to help you write assessment questions for your eLearning courses. Also, be prepared to share your own tips and tricks during this fun and interactive session!

Community-centered libraries engage staff in promoting and supporting positive change in their local communities. However, the steps for authentically engaging the community in problem-solving are often unclear. In this webinar, participants will be introduced to the SOAR (Strengths, Opportunities, Aspirations, Results) Model and learn how to use it as a facilitation tool for conducting meetings with their library communities. The role of digital programming as a SOAR response to the challenges of COVID-19 will be explored, with presenters and participants alike sharing their successes and challenges.

The conference will feature keynote addresses, presentations, workshops, and digital tool training in support of undergraduate and graduate teaching and learning. In consideration of the events of the past year, DPI 2021 will include four streams: Digital Pedagogy during the Pandemic; Anti-racist and decolonized approaches to Digital Pedagogy; Inclusivity, Accessibility, and Digital Pedagogy; Digital Pedagogy and the Post-Truth society

In this honest, personal, informative, and engaged conversation session, participants will explore their self-care routines and strategies (or lack thereof) and how they might find new ways to build self-care practices and strategies into their daily practices moving forward. Let’s work together to create individualized plans to weather whatever challenges the new school year brings.

This virtual event will highlight various aspects of queer librarianship, including programs, projects, outreach, and initiatives, from areas of academic library and archives work. It will include a keynote by Shawn(ta) Smith-Cruz, presentations by representatives from some of the projects that Walt Walker contributed to during his time with us (ONE Archives, Rainbow Round Table, and Homosaurus), and solicited lightning round presentations.

Renewed interest in DEI has prompted organization leaders to reflect on the progress (or lack of progress) they have made with these efforts. As one Wall Street Journal article states, “It’s time to move from saying, “We need to do this“ to asking “What are we doing with this?” Showing the value of DEI investments can be challenging for some professionals. This session will describe how to measure the value, including ROI, of DEI programs.

Join us for this special session featuring award-winning Moroccan American author Laila Lalami. As a novelist and essayist, much of Lalami’s work, including her latest book Conditional Citizens, focuses on issues of race and immigration. Her writing has been honored with the American Book Award, the Arab-American Book Award, and the Hurston/Wright Legacy Award. She’s also been a Pulitzer Prize finalist and long-listed for the Man Booker Prize.

Our communities are made up of people and their stories. And what better place is there to help tell, share, and preserve these stories than the library! Sparked by the efforts of the Keene Valley Library in New York, OurStoryBridge is a project which helps libraries capture and share the rich social and cultural history of their communities. The project has released a free toolkit of resources for library staff and volunteers to create online, three-to five- minute oral histories, a format that appeals to young and old today. The toolkit includes everything a library needs to know to start a story project, such as step by step instructions, “how-to” videos, sample documents, and a guide to help teachers engage their students in community stories. Join the creator of OurStoryBridge and staff at two libraries who have implemented the program to hear their experiences with this inspiring and impactful project and learn how your library can participate.

How can an academic library foster conditions that help students become academically and socially engaged?

Experience some of the creativity and fun of the ConnectED program with Barb Eshbach as she presents how one academic library developed a program to provide out-of-classroom experiences designed to do just that.

The dominant mode by which research libraries have provided maximum journal access as broadly and efficiently as possible — subscription bundles or “Big Deals” — is giving way to new approaches. This transition is taking place through a combination of negotiations with vendors, open access activism, business modeling, and user needs assessment, among other factors. To support these processes, Ithaka S+R partnered with 11 academic libraries to understand researcher behavior and perceptions to help inform their ongoing strategic decision-making about Big Deal journal subscriptions. This talk by the project’s lead researchers, Oya Y. Rieger and Danielle Cooper, will highlight key findings from the study and its potential implications for libraries.

After a decade of proving its value within higher education, the “Flipped Classroom” model debuted in the workplace in 2019. Since then, however, organizations have quickly adapted to using real-time video conferencing tools like Zoom, Webex, and GoToMeetings, particularly in the areas of training and employee onboarding. How then, should organizations be using a flipped-classroom approach in today's environment?

This presentation addresses customer service training by growing and nurturing empathy and empowering staff to navigate the gray areas in our policies. Using storytelling and group interaction, we will look at special and challenging situations such as code of conduct violations and difficult patrons. Discover how understanding our own implicit biases and not assuming the worst of our patrons can help you offer consistent customer service to everyone we serve.