PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN CHALLENGING TIMES: TOOLS & TECHNIQUES FOR KEEPING CURRENT WITH LIMITED RESOURCES

Rebecca K. Miller, Virginia Tech Libraries

VLA 2010Portsmouth, VA

“Professional Development”

New knowledge New skills Increase professional capabilities Personal development Learning activities Maintain or enhance one’s competence Work with a mentor Social networking

A whole new world…

Professional development has always been an important consideration for the information professional

The dynamic “library” environment magnifies this importance

Areas of Development

Service skills Reference techniques Outreach Technology Subject specific topics Human resources/staff relations Instruction aids and ideas Hot topics and issues (copyright, privacy,

etc.)

Responsibility

Professional development is an organizational, and an individual, responsibility

You need to know about the tools that will get you where you want to be, regardless of how much money or time you currently have

Additionally, we now need to consider different types of professional development opportunities

We spend how much?!

A recent survey (Primary Research Group’s Survey of Academic Librarians) indicates that U.S. academic librarians spend an average of $1,484 on costs associated with library conferences, per year

This number, coupled with many universities’ shrinking travel budgets presents a major issue

A few solutions…

The American Library Association now offers committee seats to “virtual members,” and committees often meet via ALAConnect or Skype rather than attending the costly meetings

ACRL and other groups now offer “webinars” rather than in-person seminars, in order to bring the content to the professionals

Better solutions?

BUT: $0 >

How do we achieve $0—And gain the skills we need to be

competitive and thrive in the current library environment?

More research

The same Primary Research Group report indicates that librarians spend about 20 minutes a day reading print publications and blogs: is this professional development?

YES! Let’s consider a few nontraditional tools that are extremely relevant to your professional development needs…

Various Tools

Webinars Organizational websites Blogs Twitter, Facebook, other social networks Free, online university courses “Shared” Presentations (Slideshare, YouTube,

Facebook) Often include specific “how-to’s”

Old-fashioned tools: Books and journals People (you and your colleagues)

Websites—still relevant!

Nebraska STAR Reference Manual http://www.nlc.state.ne.us/Ref/star/star.html

Internet Library for Librarians http://itcompany.com/inforetriever/

Answering Reference Questions Using the Internet http://www.bcpl.gov.bc.ca/lsb/cltp/Courses/Appendices/InternetRef.

htm

Dewey and the Alien http://library.thinkquest.org/5002/Alien/alien.h

tmThanks to Stephanie Wilkes, Ouachita Parish PL

Webinars & Online Courses

Five Weeks to a Social Library: http://www.sociallibraries.com/course/

W3C Schools Online Tutorials: http://www.w3schools.com/

More Webinars…

VLA Blog/Continuing Education:http://www.vla.org/wordpress/

NEFLIN: http://neflin2.blogspot.com/

Organizational courses/publications EDUCAUSE: www.educause.edu

Certification, Education, Training,

and Tutorials 7 Things You Should Know Horizon Report

(Annual)

LOC Web Guide

www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/libsci/guides.html

Check out the “current awareness” pages

Blogs

Examples: librarian.net theshiftedlibrarian The Travelin’ Librarian Confessions of a Science Librarian Annoyed Librarian Mashable Arts & Letters Daily Chronicle of Higher Education Library Garden

Let the information come to you RSS

Send blog posts, and other “updates” to your email

Use Feed Readers Google Bloglines FeedReader Ping.fm Gist

Twitter feeds

Be a Twitter voyeur, regardless of your desire to tweet

(A few) top library-related accounts: LISNews Library Journal ALANews SLJournal LISWire

Twitter “managers” HootSuite (http://hootsuite.com) TweetDeck (http://www.tweetdeck.com)

Interesting example…

Earlier this month, Bobbi Newman (librarianbyday.net) posted about using Twitter on her blog:

HootSuite The different accounts I manage

All of the accounts that “VT Libraries” follows:

•ALA accounts•Database accounts•Organizational accounts

Our stream

Facebook pages

Be a Facebook voyeur, regardless of your desire to “connect”

Many organizations and library leaders post things in FB that don’t appear other places Internet Librarian American Libraries Magazine Library Journal Library & Information Technology Association Library programs/schools Specific leaders (Joe Murphy, Lisa Carlucci

Thomas, etc.)

My FB “learning network”

Conferences, library leaders, library organizations, and libraries all use FB as a marketing tool—

It’s free, easy to use (relatively), and extremely pervasive.

University (and other) courses For librarians interested in gaining

subject-specific knowledge without investing in a new degree, that goal has never been easier to attain

Free, online courses: MIT (http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/web/home/home/index.htm) Yale (http://oyc.yale.edu/)

Podcasts (iTunes U): over 250,000 free coures, videos

Library of Congress Software Languages Much, much more

“Shared” presentations

Many professionals upload instruction sessions, how-to’s and other presentations to sites that allow them to share their knowledge Slideshare

Search for “library management” or “gaming in libraries”

YouTube YouTube EDU, search for specific how-to’s

Facebook Tutorials hosted in FB:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Houston-TX/LSC-North-Harris-Library/75136419361

Wikis

Libraries have truly embraced wiki technology

Create your own, or

collaborate withother institutions

using PBWorks MediaWiki Wikispaces Wetpaint

Collaboration

http://www.libsuccess.org/index.php?title=Library_Success:_A_Best_Practices_Wiki

Professional Reading

Goodreads

Open Access Journals DOAJ: Library & Information Science titles (doaj.org) Current Cites (lists.webjunction.org) LibDex (libdex.com) BUBL Journals (bubl.ac.uk/journals) E-Prints in Library & Information Science (eprints.rclis.org)

My “professional” bookshelf, shared with others and linked to other, related books

Other ways of sharing

Social bookmarking Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit

Reading groups Have monthly meetings Rotate leadership/instruction responsibilities Select a reading for each meet-up

A different perspective

Chances are, you are an expert on some topic How can you share your knowledge in a way

that might help develop others professionally? Write, or co-write a blog or other type of publication Create or contribute to a Delicious, Twitter, or

Facebook account Facilitate a reading group or series of sessions Write and distribute an internal “newsletter”on

relevant issues or topics Create a collaborative site on Ning or with wiki

software for sharing ideas

Pulling it all together…

The choices for free professional development are overwhelming

You need a management plan What do you regularly look at/subscribe to? How often? What will you use as reference resources?

Roundtable Discussion

Let’s share tips and ideas for taking control of our own professional development and continuing education…

Consider, even money saving tips that you use while attending conferences (such as VLA)

Questions?

Thank you!Rebecca K. Millermillerrk@vt.edu

www.slideshare.net/millerrktwitter.com/vtlibrariesSearch for “Virginia Tech Libraries” on

FacebookSearch for “VT Sci-Tech Lib Team” on Facebook