Continuing Education Resources for Library Staff

Libraries are not immune to crises, whether they involve security threats, natural disasters, or public health emergencies. This webinar provides essential strategies to prepare library staff for effectively managing various crises, ensuring the safety and well-being of both patrons and employees. Participants will gain the tools to develop comprehensive crisis management plans, execute them efficiently, and communicate clearly during emergencies
Attendees will learn how to:

• Develop and implement a crisis management plan.
• Communicate effectively during emergencies.
• Maintain safety and security during various crisis scenarios.

Who will benefit from this program:

• Library Directors and Managers
• Safety and Security Teams
• All Library Staff 

Presenter: Analia Fiorio has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of Public Relations (PR), Networking, Organization and Management. She is an Ontological Coach certified by the 2 most important federations in the world. She has a degree in Public and Institutional Relations and a Master’s degree in Business Management (MBA). She is recognized in Argentina for being a reference for gender equality and female empowerment, which has earned her national awards and recognition.

Burnout among library staff is an increasing concern, impacting both personal well-being and workplace productivity. This session is designed to address the importance of recognizing the signs of burnout, fostering open communication, and implementing strategies for sustainable management. You will learn strategies for managing, enhancing awareness, and actional ways to create more supportive and sustainable library workplaces. From this session, you will gain ways to:
Attendees will cultivate skills to:

• Recognize early signs of burnout
• Foster empathy and support
• Build a strategy for preventing and managing burnout
• Develop a resilient team 

Presenter: Dr. Stevie M. Munz, Ph.D. is an award-winning teacher and researcher with 10+ years of experience in the communication field. She has led hundreds of discussion forums, presentations, trainings, and workshops. As a communication expert, she is passionate about developing your communication power skills!

Are you looking for new picture books to share in your classroom, curriculum, or collection? This presentation will showcase the "best of the best" from the 2024 publishing crop. A variety of books will be featured, including quality read-alouds, distinguished illustrations, and stories ranging in tone, theme, and style. Don’t miss this hour-long event to discover the latest standout picture books. 

Participants will:

• Develop a list of new picture books that connect to the preschool and kindergarten audience, both as read aloud performance and one-to-one reading sessions
• Learn how to select quality books for collections and programming, with a wide variety of themes, tones, subjects, and illustration styles. Acquire simple techniques to analyze picture book art
• Identify books that align with kindergarten readiness skills or Early Learning standards, and make connections to other books while discovering new authors and illustrators

Presenter: Katie Clausen is the Early Literacy Services Manager at Gail Borden Public Library and a current PhD candidate in Information Studies at Dominican University. She holds an MLIS from Dominican University and an M.A. in Children’s Literature from Simmons College. Katie has shared her expertise at numerous conferences, and her articles have been featured in the Children & Libraries: The Journal of ALSC and Marvels and Tales. Her specialties include early literacy, children’s literature evaluation, and best storytime practices.

Are you wanting to make your organization’s images really pop? This session will delve into information about types of digital cameras, lenses, basics of camera operations, image composition, online image storage, and online editing tools. Learn how to stage an area to make it look its best and how to incorporate those images into your organization’s promotional and marketing strategies. We’ll also look at how to create your own stock images using Canva.
Attendees will:

• Understand the importance of staging and framing images.
• Identify common reasons why promotional photos and images look great vs. what may not be appealing.
• Explore the key components of photography and camera basics.
• Develop skills to further explore and use imaging tools.

Presenter: Dr. Curtis Rogers is a library consultant who has worked in the library and information science field for over 35 years. He has worked at the Union (SC) Carnegie Library, and the Charleston County (SC) Public Library, and retired as the Communications Director of the South Carolina State Library. He has also taught courses at the University of South Carolina School of Library and Information Science. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Geography, a Master of Library and Information Science, and a Doctor of Education in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of South Carolina. 

From Sensory Storytimes to Disability Justice Book Clubs, libraries around the country push beyond the basics of ADA compliance to welcome disabled patrons at the library. But how do these libraries reach disabled library users and determine their information needs? In 2023 on behalf of Publishers Weekly, author and public librarian Susan Metallo interviewed librarians about their challenges and successes in serving disabled patrons. In this webinar, Susan shares best practices and lessons-learned from these proactive programs. She also recommends a framework for developing library services that empower the disabled community to engage with the public library, crafted both from her research and from her lived experience as a disabled library-lover.

Attendees will learn:

• Who belongs to the broad and diverse disabled community, how to reach them, and what language and behavior will signal welcome and respect
• Different marketing strategies for disabled patrons and for non-disabled caregivers of disabled people (e.g., parents of disabled children, family members of patrons with Alzheimers) 
• How to make your collection more accessible and relevant to disabled patrons
• Strategies for giving disabled patrons agency and input in decisions about services and policies that will affect them

Presenter: Susan Metallo is a neurodivergent author, librarian, and Publishers Weekly contributor. Her debut novel, Reasons to Hate Me—winner of the 2022 SCBWI Young Adult Work-in-Progress Award and the 2022 Seven Hills Literary Contest for Young Adult Literature—will be released Fall 2025 from Candlewick Press and features themes of honesty, agency, and disability justice against the backdrop of hilarious high school misadventures. Find her online at www.susanmetallo.com.

You know about word games like Scrabble, Boggle and Bananagrams, but what about using Outfoxed, What Do You Meme?, or even Jenga for language development? Learn about some modern games, along with fresh ways to look at old favorites to highlight language skills. Your presenter, Annabelle Blackman, has used games professionally since 2017 in a variety of library programming. From Family Game Days to reading intervention programs to English Conversation Club, she has used games to encourage language skills in groups of all ages. Adapting well established early literacy guidelines from children's librarianship, Annabelle will share ideas for you to apply to your audience.

Takeaways from this program will include:

• Information about how board games support various types of literacy.
• A rubric to assess board games for your language goals.
• Confidence in adapting board games to your audience.
• Tools and resources for further growth as you create a tabletop culture in your library.

Presenter: Annabelle Blackman is a Librarian II at Oakland Public Library in California. Around 10 years ago, she discovered modern hobby games alongside her then 3-year-old. She stays active in her local scene, serving as a Board Game Captain at a local indie role playing game convention, Big Bad Con. Professionally, Annabelle has a particular interest in games that appeal to intergenerational groups of varying literacy levels, and English language fluency.

ChatGPT and other large language model tools (generative artificial intelligence (AI) entered the scene in late 2022, causing a stir around job security, ethics, and many other concerns and exploits. Library leaders began planning for AI in the workplace as early as 2018. Now that it is here, we have seen how AI fabricates false MARC records, providing some relief for job security for now. Yet AI can be a helpful tool when it comes to original. This session will provide an overview of generative AI, discuss advantages and ethical concerns, and provide examples of how it fails to do cataloging. It will also provide scenarios for the use of generative AI as an everyday tool for cataloging.

Presenter: Bobby Bothmann is a professor at Minnesota State University, Mankato where he serves as the catalog and metadata librarian. Bobby catalogs analog and digital resources of all kinds, including books, serials, moving images, objects, cartographic resources, musical and spoken word audio recordings, and music in between many meetings. He is a member of the editorial board for Cataloging & Classification Quarterly and an active member of OLAC (OnLine Audiovisual Catalogers) where he has served in various leadership roles including treasurer, president, and the current archivist. Bothmann holds an MLIS from the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee and an MS in Geography and English Technical Communication from MSU Mankato. Bobby moonlights as an adjunct instructor for the School of Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he teaches cataloging and classification courses and tries to covert one student per semester to the cataloging side of the Force.

Partnering with community can be a great strategy for the Public Library. Identifying the needs of community and then partnering with the correct resource can be a win-win solution for patrons and others.  There is no need to recreate the wheel and there are significant benefits involved for the library and the community partner. In this webinar we will look at the foundational principles of creating and sustaining impactful community partnerships. We will explore practical strategies for identifying shared goals, fostering mutual trust, and leveraging collective resources to address community needs effectively.  As a result of this program, attendees will learn how to:

• Find partners while addressing the community needs 
• Set mutual goals with their partners 
• Identify “best fit” community partners 
• Explain Library and Partner benefits to stakeholders

Presenter: Nicolle Davies is a library leader, speaker, and consultant.  Davies serves as the State Librarian for Colorado.  She holds both a Master’s in Public Administration and a Master’s in Library and Information Sciences.  Davies served as the Executive Director of the Charleston County Public Library in South Carolina, and the Arapahoe Library District in Colorado.  She was named Library Journal’s 2016 Librarian of the Year.  Before coming to libraries, Davies worked in broadcast journalism and public relations.  She is considered an expert in policy design, advocacy, leadership, public relations, and communications.  

Customer service skills generally consist of the knowledge, processes, expertise and the understanding that are needed to make customers as satisfied as possible. These skills are developed through several different avenues, including training, support and experience. There are generally two different types of these skills: people and technical. Both types of skills are equally important and good customer service is the ability to combine a good balance of both skill sets to provide the best experience possible.  Join Andrew for this program as we examined his top ten basic and essential skills that every successful organization and employee focuses on with their customers.
Presenter: Andrew Sanderbeck is a respected expert presenter and consultant on customer service and the customer experience, improving workplace communication and sharpening organizational management and leadership practices.   He believes that one of the fastest ways to win a customer’s loyalty and trust is to actively listen to them.

Are your reference skills ready for a refresh? Join us for a practical and engaging webinar designed for librarians and library staff who want to sharpen their foundational reference abilities. 
This session will empower you with:

• Effective Reference Interview Techniques: Discover strategies to better understand and meet patrons' needs.
• Top Reliable Sources: Learn about free, trusted websites and databases for accurate and up-to-date information.
• Specialized Resources: Explore new and enduring search tools, along with essential health and government information sources
• Organization Tips: Develop a personalized reference library and implement effective strategies for tracking and managing your resources

Presenter: Kira Smith has been a dedicated Virtual Reference Specialist with Florida’s Ask A Librarian service for over 15 years. A recipient of multiple Exemplary Reference Awards, Kira is passionate about guiding people to the information they need. In addition to her work in virtual reference, she freelances as a research consultant for journalists, providing expert insights and fact-finding services. Kira also regularly hosts webinars, sharing her knowledge and experience in the fields of online reference and information literacy. Her diverse background includes experience as an elementary school teacher and a certified childbirth educator, adding depth to her understanding of teaching and communication. With a love for technology, education, and travel, Kira continually seeks innovative ways to enhance learning experiences and connect with people around the world.