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Spring CLO Symposium: Virtual Edition

April 18, 2011 By

CLO Virtual Symposium 2011 LogoI’m always a fan of free stuff (and learning from the big guys in enterprise training) so I thought I’d share that Chief Learning Officer magazine is offering an online version of their Spring Symposium on April 26th & 27th, 2011. Titled Learning Evolution: Alignment, Agility and Adaptability, there are several levels of registration, the free version includes all of these events:

  • ALL Workshops in Salon One, with a few titles below:
    • The Great Divide: Adapting and Aligning L&D Initiatives to Meet Worker Skill Realities
    • Learning at the Speed of Need
    • Adaptive Learning Design Principles and Best Practices
    • Accelerate Learning and Drive Behavior Through Social Networks and Informal Learning
    • Virtual Learning Environments: Trends & Insights
    • Creating an Adaptive and Innovative Learning Environment
    • Using Measurement to Improve Outcomes
    • Great Webinars: Crossing the Chasm from Classroom Training to High-Performance Virtual Delivery
  • Welcome Address from president and editor in chief, Norm Kamikow
  • Opening Keynote from Bill Jensen and Josh Klein, authors of Hacking Work: Breaking Stupid Rules for Smart Results
  • Access to the Expo Hall
  • Networking Lounge
  • Resource Center

Let me know if you’re attending, we can hit the backchannels together too!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: E-Learning, Feature, Free Stuff, Synchronous Learning Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Refurbed Card Catalog becomes Awesome eReader Storage

March 17, 2011 By

How many of us have emply card catalogs gathering dust in the back halls of our our libraries? Linn McDonald, Library Media Specialist at the Bloomington Jr. High School in Illinois, came up with a creative way to take one of these treasured relics into the digital age. “I have received many many positive comments from fellow librarians as well as faculty and students in our school.” she says, “We found that both our Nooks and our Kindles fit in the drawers with their covers on.”

Linn adds that “the cabinet is perfect for organizing our eReaders as we have them in groups of six, and each column in the cabinet has six drawers. Most ebooks can be purchased once and placed on up to six Nooks, so each column represent one group. Each group is registered under a separate email address. That way, it’s easier for us to keep track of what books are on each group. I have labelled each column/group with a separate name. Our 4 groups are Eliot, Maya, Voltaire, and Beatrix, with each Nook in the group labelled as Eliot1, Eliot2, and so forth.”

She also mentions that they are balancing the use of thier Nook collection by checking out three groups to reading teachers and one group to individual students who return a form signed by a parent or guardian. The reading teachers are using the Nooks with groups of six students. “Some struggling readers, some very high-level readers – so we can reach a wider range of students in our school. Some groups are creating video or podcast book trailers after finishing their book. I’m sure other ideas will follow as we use these with our students.”

Thanks for sharing with us, Linn, and please keep us up to date on those new ideas!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: e-readers, Feature, Free Stuff, Technology Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Learning Vicariously with Google Reader Play

December 1, 2010 By

Annewhite Fuller, HMCPL Heritage Room Manager, learns vicariously with Google Reader Play

Annewhite Fuller, HMCPL Heritage Room Manager, learns vicariously by watching Google Reader Play

Today several of our library staff are participating in WebJunction’s free (and fabulous) Serving the 21st Century Patron online conference. Those that choose to come into my office instead of viewing on their own computers are treated to a few perks. In addition to the several laptops available during webinars for staff, today’s event includes a personal login to the sessions so they may participate in chat. I also have the Twitter hashtag running in real-time on another laptop. Visitors are more than welcome to bring food, snacks or a favorite beverage into my little training room.

As you might expect from a visual learner, during the breaks or before sessions I usually project my Librarianship feeds in Google Reader Play, Inevitably, attendees say, “Oh, cool! what is that!?” I show them my feeds in the folders, then how to control the player with a wireless mouse. Because their interest is peaked with the slideshow of information, I almost always give them a quick lesson on how to use Google Reader and have several converts among our staff.

A few things about Reader Play:

  • Click the item’s title or the associated image to view the original site content.
  • Click the “read more” link to view the full feed content for that item, or click the eye icon in the bottom left to switch to always showing the full feed content.
  • Tired of manually navigating Reader Play? Click the TV icon to start a slideshow of items — simply sit back and enjoy.
  • Hide the thumbnails at the bottom by clicking the thumbnail icon in the bottom left.

I’d love to hear of other tools you might use to supplement your training events in comments!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: Cool Tools, The Training Life Tagged With: ,

Are You Happy?

November 24, 2010 By

"Are You Happy?" by Alex Koplin and David Meiklejohn

I’ve shown this poster to a couple of people this morning and, on this Thanksgiving Eve, I want to share it with you, too.

Always having been a fan of the visual element, this flowchart sums up exactly how I feel about happiness. You see, I’m thankful that I got the ‘happy gene‘ from my Sweet Mother. She woke up with a smile on her face, the day was always beautiful and full of potential. She chose to be happy every single day. I’m so glad she passed it on to me. One of my children is lucky enough to have it, too. The other doesn’t. It’s a glass half full / half empty attitude. I think even someone with mental or physical illness can choose to be happy; the right meds may be required, but still…

I originally blogged this flowchart over a year ago, now I’m glad to see the illustrators are offering prints for only $25.00 and will be ordering several copies. I’ve been through a lot of personal changes since then, some bad…but most are good. Through it all, I’ve made sure that I can be happy with the decisions I’ve made using this simple analysis. It has absolutely worked for me, and I am thankful.

On this Thanksgiving Eve, I wish you happiness.

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , ,

In Praise of the Free Webinar

September 16, 2010 By

Though sometimes derided, many of us have been involved, one way or another, in a webinar.  Or, more correctly,  a WEBinar™. The term is a neologism of web + seminar, they are a live online educational presentation during which attendees can submit questions and comments, as opposed to a “webcast” which doesn’t offer chat or polls. Sessions are usually archived and registrants may view a recording of the event at another time.  Whether we are presenting, producing or attending this professional, educational environment has given rise to a powerful collaborative, knowledge-sharing resource.

As someone in charge of pushing learning opportunities to library staff, half of which are in one building and the other in 11 all over the county, I’ve almost always got a huge variety of quality topics to offer. With all my other duties, I manage to write about one new class a month. In these budgetary times, what a slim professional development calendar that would be without all these free webinars!

I’ve created a Google Reader Bundle that helps me keep up with the offerings from individual providers that have RSS feeds. I also subscribe to Brad Ward’s Library Webinars blog and Stephanie Zimmerman’s Library-Related Training Opportunities Google Calendar for the ones that don’t catch in my feed reader.  I register, and add them to the Intranet calendar, complete with signups and reminders for staff to attend. I show them in my conference room / office, but also remind them that they may be viewable remotely or in an archive.

With each major update to the training calender I’ll blog the listings and send a mass email to staff. Whether they come into my office or view remotely, they’ve now got access to some of the brightest minds and the latest trends in Librarianship and beyond. I’m often asked to replay sessions when a topic becomes locally important, that’s Just-in-Time learning…when training is needed the most.

I’ve pasted below the upcoming webinars I’ll be showing in my office or encouraging staff to view at their offices or branches. Huge thanks to the sponsors, producers and presenters for providing topical and relevant content for library staff every where!

9/21/10 The Scoop on Series Nonfiction: What’s New for Fall 1:00pm – 2:00pm CST Booklist Webinar: Series nonfiction publishers are offering more titles than ever this fall, and as they continue to expand into digital formats and approach the curriculum in new ways, it’s more challenging than ever to keep up. In this hourlong webinar moderated by Booklist Books for Youth associate editor Dan Kraus, we’ll hear from five of the top publishers in this booming field: Heinemann-Raintree; Gale/Cengage Learning; Weigl Publishers, Inc.; Black Rabbit Books; and Lerner Publishing Group. Besides presenting their biggest fall titles and initiatives, they’ll also give attendees up-to-date information on the latest trends.

9/21/10 Scholarly Research and Source Validation in the Age of Google 2:00pm – 3:00pm CST Library Journal Webcast: Librarians, scholars, and publishers alike are asking questions about how to manage the increasing amount of unverified content (both good and bad) that is now easily available through our computers. We are all drowning in it. The situation poses a particularly challenging problem in the educational arena, where students and scholars need reliable sources of information. Whether today’s researchers are doing initial research for a book, working on a doctoral dissertation, or an undergraduate term paper, it’s harder and harder to know what sources to consult. Register now to hear our esteemed panel, moderated by Library Journal’s Cheryl LaGuardia discuss this crisis of validation in the Google age, and the new roles that Libraries, Publishers and Scholars play in the culture of information overload.

9/22/10 Strategies for Implementing and Optimizing Self-Service: Librarians Share Their Success 1:00pm – 2:00pm CST Library Journal Webinar: Join representatives from three leading libraries who have cost-effectively and successfully implemented self-service in this information-rich roundtable webinar. In today’s tough economy, many libraries rely on self-service to offset significant increases in circulation, severe budget cuts, and staff reductions. Are you prepared to effectively implement self-service in your library? Are you confident that you are realizing maximum value from your self-service investment?

9/22/10 Shine a Light on your Digital Collections 1:00pm – 2:00pm CST OCLC Webinar: Learn how you can spotlight your digital collections and make them visible to users across the web. Join Michael Scott, Maryland Digital Cultural Heritage Coordinator, for a live webinar as she discusses how she uses everything from social media to WorldCat.org to highlight the availability of their online collections. Also hear from Suzanne Butte, OCLC Digital Services Consultant, on the wide variety of ways that other libraries, museums, archives and historical societies promote their digital collections.

9/23/10 The Manager’s Tool Kit, Part One: Listening and Feedback 11:00am – 12:00pm CST Ken Blanchard Companies Webinar: Proactive listening and the ability to deliver feedback effectively are two of the most important skills managers can develop for building trust and creating a supportive environment for direct reports. Yet in both cases, managers often overestimate their ability to listen attentively and deliver feedback objectively. In this webinar, Blanchard Senior Consulting Partner and author Dr. Vicki Halsey will show managers how to improve their skills in both areas in a way that leaves direct reports feeling heard and that helps them to focus on improving performance.

9/23/10 SLJ Nonfiction Book Buzz 2010 12:00pm – 1:00pm, CST A School Library Journal Webinar: Our panel of nonfiction publishers will tell you how they strive to produce the most accurate and well-research core-related materials for grades K-12 while also keeping these titles attractive, easy to use, and accessible to a range of reading levels. We’ll hear about series in science, social studies, biography, art, math, health, and more, most correlated to each state’s standards. Tune in for the buzz on new and forthcoming series nonfiction and get those gaps in your collection filled.

9/28/10 Defending the Right to Read: Celebrating Banned Books Week with Judy Blume 1:00pm – 2:00pm CST Booklist Online Webinar: Librarians and teachers face more challenges than ever when it comes to defending children’s right to read. In celebration of Banned Books Week, this webinar features a stellar panel of experts, including renowned author and longtime advocate of intellectual freedom Judy Blume, who will discuss book rating systems, the impact of the Internet on challenges, the effect of censorship on children’s publishing, and how to best prepare for book challenges. Additional speakers include Beverly Horowitz, Vice President and Publisher of Delacorte Press Books for Young Readers; Pat Scales, former school librarian and a member of the National Coalition against Censorship Council of Advisors; Kristin Pekoll, a young-adult librarian at the West Bend (WI) Community Memorial Library; and Nanette Perez, program officer at ALA’s Office for Intellectual Freedom.

10/06/10 Gadget Checklist 2010: For library staff, users and our future 1:00pm -2:00pm CST WebJunction Webinar. Description: Do you need a gadgets orientation covering types, brands, features, functionality and answers to why gadgets are so popular with your patrons? Join us for this webinar with Michael Porter when he presents a checklist-filled session also covering how users are consuming and accessing content on gadgets and how libraries are purchasing and lending gadgets to host this content. It’s time for you to complete your checklist and to explore the implications gadgets have on the future of library services.

10/19 /10 Dealing with the Difficult Patrons 1:00pm -2:00pm CST WebJunction Webinar: Library staff can handle difficult patrons, resolve issues or problems quickly and efficiently and retain customer loyalty throughout. Join presenters Paul Signorelli, writer, trainer, and consultant with a strong focus on workplace learning and performance, and Maurice Coleman, Technical Trainer at Harford County Public Library, for this one hour webinar providing expert resources for working with a patron using common sense practices and techniques for bringing that customer back into the fold.

Comment to let me know if I missed any upcoming events. I’d also love to hear how you use invaluable webinars like these in your own training programs!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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The TED Commandments

May 13, 2010 By

The TED Talks promoters send this tablet as a guide for speakers prior to each event. In her TED Talk  Amy Tan described the arrival of the TED Commandments as “something that creates a near-death experience; but near-death is good for creativity…”

 Used in a broader sense I’m convinced that many of these rules can be applied to almost any talk or presentation, but (of course) would welcome your comments!


Image by Rives, transcribed by Tim Longhurst. Via Garr Reynolds.

  1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick

    2. Pressure yourself to keep learning about a topic. I have an Information Overload talk I gave a few years ago, and wouldn’t dream of presenting it again without catching up on the latest theories and contributions to the debate.

  2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before

    3. Don’t be afraid to experiment with what you’ve already learned. Share not only what you know, but what you’d like it to be.  Look at your processes, at what you do every day. If it works for you, it’s quite possible the process is a good one and could be shared, inviting discussion to make it even better.

  3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion

    4. It’s your topic, your audience. Own them. Your talk may be at a monthly department meeting or national conference, but most likely you’ve got a keen interest in the subject. Show it!

    Perhaps you actually are passionate about the topic, even better. Share your excitement as well as your progress.

  4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story

    5. Involve your audience by giving them someone to empathize with and to make them care.  The story might be about yourself or someone else, it doesn’t matter as long as it’s a good tell.

  5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy

    6. As you catch up,  read and get involved on blogs by those you admire within the topic. Commenting on posts is a great way to become engaged with those who care about the same things you do. Also explore dissenting opinions, adding your own if you have them.

  6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.

    7. No one wants to hear about how wonderful you are because you figured this out, but the different methods you used to get the conclusion. If you’ve learned from your mistakes, someone else will, too.

  7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desparate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.

    8. While I agree that I don’t usually want to hear a sales pitch, I’d take exception to this when appealing for library funding or for my job.

  8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.

    9. I’ve heard different opinions on humor during talks, but I gave this advice to a staff member just the other day: If you’re going to use humor point it towards yourself. I use self-deprecating humor quite a bit, it seems to somehow relax the audience, especially when teaching technology. Also be careful of humor that may offend someone: I thought about writing this post as if I were Moses and God Himself had delivered the tablets and burning bushes were involved. I reconsidered…probably very wisely.

  9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.

    10. Worse yet, never turn your back to your audience to read slides. Then again, don’t put so much text on a slide that you’d have to read it at all! Text is for handouts.

  10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee

    11. Make your talk worthwhile with your passion and your knowledge. Give them one big thing to remember a week later, your chance of retention is better the less you try to put in their heads. Even though some training is repetitive in nature, get them excited, fired up and ready to go use what you’ve taught them!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: Presentation Tips, The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

On Sunshine, Smiles and Kittens

February 18, 2010 By

This post is not going to be about workplace violence, even though it’s recently been heavy on my mind. On February 17th,  an Assistant Professor in the Biology Department at The University of Alabama in Huntsville opened fire in a staff meeting killing  three coworkers and injuring three more. Dr. Amy Bishop is now charged with those crimes. My library is in Huntsville, everyone who works here knows someone at UAH.

Nor is it going to be about conflict management, though I’ve got a fairly good presentation on that topic and can talk about it for hours.

While this post is about workplace etiquette, it’s not a broad guide. There are plenty of those available.  I’d like to step back even further and discuss one small thing we can do at work to reduce daily stress and create a better work environment for everyone.

I remember staying after school one day in elementary school to help a teacher pack up her room at year’s end. As I said goodbye, the teacher handed me an old poster with ragged corners. “If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours” quoted the poster, complete with rays of sunshine on a kitten. She told me she wanted me to have it because she’d noticed how quick I was to smile at the other children, always cheerful and ready to help. She spoke of kindness and courtesy, manners and graciousness. It has a huge impact on me, I would even call it empowering.

In 2006 I attended a SirsiDynix Webinar with Pat Wagner called “Library Conflict Management for Consenting Adults Turning Enemies into Allies” in which she mentioned that libraries should have a “civility clause” for employees.  Soon after, I conducted a little experiment in the staff-only halls of the library. Moving through the building, I pulled up my the corners of my mouth and set a smile there. Every single person who passed said hello or wanted talk about something. The next day, I set a frown before I roamed the halls. A couple of people said I looked tired, one even asked what was wrong. It was as if the energy around me changed instead of just a few facial muscles, I was really struck with the results. Many times since I’ve heard someone make a nasty remark or slam a door in anger at work and wish we had a policy for Being Nice.

Call me Pollyanna, it’s been done before. I’m a firm believer in the power of positivity. When doing research on a class for managers on giving evaluations, I relied heavily on The Power of Positive Criticism by Hendrie Weisinger. He writes of emotional intelligence, being improvement-oriented and guarding self-esteem in those around you.  The book had a profound effect on the way I deal with people in every aspect of my life and I recommend it often to others.

Too often we forget simple courtesy in the workplace. Don’t wait until you have to bring in a conflict resolution arbitrator or consult the attorneys on harassment law. It’s too late when you’re forced to hire grief counselors.

You have the power to give someone a smile today.  It’s free and it feels good. Who knows? You might just get one back in return.

Funeral services for Dr. Adriel Johnson, Dr. Gopi Podila and Dr. Maria Ragland Davis begin today.


Image credit: The Huntsville Times

Information about UAH’s Department of Biological Sciences Memorial Scholarship Fund may be found here.

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Marianne’s Day in the Library

January 13, 2010 By

When asked to write an introductory post I knew that my answers to 27 questions could never measure up with the others that had been posted, so I thought I’d let my new camera do it for me. Bobbi Newman’s fabulous Library Day in the Life Project is coming round again soon for Round Four,  and she didn’t mind that I get a bit of a jump-start and use the format for this spiel.  This time I’m using a Flickr Slideshow, if you’ll view it full screen and check for descriptions under Options or at Flickr you’ll get my notes for each image…

I’m so fortunate to love what I do and that I get to learn from other people, here,  doing much the same thing.  I’m looking forward to reading the rest of my fellow contributor’s biographical posts and the upcoming Library Day in the Life pieces, all to connect us just a little bit more.

Marianne Lenox, Staff & Volunteer Coordinator
Huntsville Madison County Public Library

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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Filed Under: The Training Life Tagged With: , , , , , ,

A Collaborative Learning Experiment: Top Ten Customer Service Skills for Library Staff

December 14, 2009 By

Recently I was asked to give a 15 minute talk on customer service skills to the Huntsville – Madison County Public Library Public Service staff at their regular monthly meeting. Though I started the discussion with ten points outlined below, I knew that our front line staff could contribute even more and wanted to capture the exchange. We live-blogged it on our Drupal-based staff Intranet, adding notes during the discussion and encouraging comments afterward. Here are the results of that conversation:

  1. Greet every customer
    Every single patron deserves your eye contact: A smile and a hello are even better. Jackie Matthews (Youth Services) spoke of introducing herself, letting the patron know that she is willing to help if there are problems or questions. “Be alert for customers that come in the library angry or upset, a greeting validates the patron and let’s them know they are valuable to us. Sometimes a patron just doesn’t know where to go and will hover around a public service desk or in the stacks, often not asking for help.” Cerene Prince, of the Computer Training Center, spoke of engaging the patron in conversation to create a friendly, accessible atmosphere in the library.
  2. Be aware of non-verbal clues
    Occasionally a customer will approach a desk or a staff member with a set jaw and a fierce look. Typically this type of body language might alert us to an impending conflict and allow the staff member to create the proper tone for the conversation. Kill them with kindness and anticipate the solution, reminding yourself where supervisors are at the moment. Also consider the non-verbal clues you might be projecting: slumped posture or arms folded indicate an unwillingness to help.
  3. Listen
    Sometimes to be heard is all a patron really wants. Listening skills allow you to get past “Can I help you?”
  4. Restate the problem or question
    Not only will you make sure you’ve heard the issue correctly, but restating the customer’s issue will validate the situation. Give the patron a chance to ask questions after your restatement. David Lilly, head of reference and adult services reminded us to, “ask open-ended questions to help narrow down the issue if it seems vague.”
  5. Be Empathetic
    Find common ground, and have compassion for the issues at hand. Even if you don’t agree, apologize for the situation. You really can be sincere when you say, “I am so sorry this is causing a problem.”
  6. Provide alternatives to “No”
    If you can’t find a solution, find someone who will. Trying to find something else to say when your first impulse is a negative reply proves that you have been listening and truly want to help. Susanna Leberman, of Heritage and Archives, often uses “Let me confer with my colleagues” as a customer service catch-all to a quandary. In the session, she noted a recent episode in which a pair of genealogy patrons needed a particular book from the archives. As it sometimes happens, the book was not on the shelf where it was supposed to be. After a five-minute search, she returned to the pair and explained that the book was missing and asked how long they planned on visiting the library that day, indicating that other staff were willing to help.  Susanna rallied the department and reported that, “Though it was a bumpy road getting the researchers what they wanted, with team effort and a little time, the problem was solved.”
  7. Reserve judgment
    Always be a professional representative of our mission: This is the public’s library. It doesn’t matter how a patron is dressed or what they are checking out, it’s important that we never are seen to be critical of the customer or the materials he or she checks out.
  8. Get (back) to them as soon as possible
    Whether on the phone, email or in-person, treat the patron with respect by following though. A real, live customer comes first over those on the phone.  Often a patron’s phone call may be transferred from one department to another in search of resolution. Computer training center coordinator Stormy Dovers noted that she learns as much about the other departments as possible so that when patrons call with questions she can answer… instead of sending them to someone else.
  9. Follow your gut instinct
    If you get feeling that something is wrong, it probably is. I noted that staff should immediately contact security or a supervisor, but call 911 if you see a crime being committed in the library.
  10. Thank them for using the library
    Your parting words to the patron may very well be what is remembered most about a visit to the library. Are there upcoming programs or new resources to discover?  Let them know we’re glad they came and offer them a reason to come back!

That afternoon, Development Director Stephenie Walker added to the talk’s blog post on our staff Intranet: “In a time when funding is at an all-time low it can be easy to be discouraged and feel helpless, but no matter what, we always have control over how we interact with patrons. In the end, they are why we do what we do – from placing a book on hold, to fundraising, to advocating with a commissioner, we do it for them.”

We do it for the patron. I just love that. Thanks, Stephenie,  and all our staff who helped with this project. We learned a lot.

Like any set of skills, evaluation and practice go along way towards mastery. Customer service is no exception. In this case, the conversations around each issue during the talk allowed us to explore beyond the bullet points. As the discussion continued online, staff added even more examples of excellent customer service:  I am considering this experiment in collaborative learning a success.

Can you think of other learning methods that can be used to combine content and real-life experiences? Please share!

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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The Library Trainer as Constructivist eLearner

November 27, 2009 By


Instructional Design by Lauren Pressley

Image: Instructional Design by Lauren Pressley


Like many others I’m learning how to do most of my job on the fly. Because the precepts of my own learning  require me to share, I thought I’d air my own personal learning adventures in case there are others in the same situation. Learning Just In Time, I’m grappling Andragogy (Adult Learning theory) and Instructional Design theory so that I can effectively build professional learning plans in a Learning Management System for HMCPL staff.


After my recommendation, we have a brand new installation of Moodle, the leading open source LMS application in the educational community, as the basis for what will be a series of competency-based learning plans for staff. While it’s still in the ITS testing phase, I’m trying to get in the right frame of mind before I begin. Of the three learning theories (Behaviorism, Cognitivism, and Constructivism) Moodle’s philosophy is guided by a “social constructionist pedagogy” which might be perfectly suited for library staff learning. The concept behind PLCMC’s “23 Things” seems to be an excellent example of Constructivism, in that by reflecting on our experiences, we construct our own understanding of the world we live in.


While there are There are Model-Based Usability Heuristics for Constructivist e-Learning, I do plan on submitting a budget request so that I may participate in a Moodle-based class titled “Implementing Online Teaching and Learning: Using Moodle and Other Web 2.0 Features” by Diane K. Kovaks. Until then, I’ve come up with a syllabus of my own: I’m subscribed to eLearning Learning Community’s feed for Instructional Design to keep up with the latest posts on the subject and I’m absorbing well. I’m following Thursday evenings’ #lrnchat on Twitter. Though still at the legitimate peripheral participation (lurking) stage, I spoke up just this week and was rewarded with good conversation about learning. Moodle tutorials (2 Minute Moodles) are to familiarize myself with the Moodle interface, while Martin Ryder of the University of Colorado at Denver School of Education has compiled an exhaustive list of Instructional Design Models and I’m working through those.


Interesting that Catherine Lombardozzi is studying the Constructivist theory within the ADDIE Instructional Design Model to develop a Learning Environment Design model.  A more common, systematic approach to eLearning, the ADDIE model get’s it’s name from the following five components: Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. Raleigh Way of Georgia Southern University’s Center for Online Learning says that ADDIE is a “strategic planning of a course. It is a blueprint that you design and follow. It helps us connect all the dots to form a clear picture of teaching and learning events” and has an excellent set of tutorials here.


Thought recently maligned, I appreciate the systemic manner and fluid hierarchy of ADDIE, and the more I study it more I feel this approach can be given to almost any talk, course or series of learning opportunities.

In TechSoup‘s recent webinar Tech Training Made Simple with Online Videos with Lee Lefever (creator of those fabulous CommonCraft videos) I asked Lee if he had any tips for library trainers on teaching technology. His reply was to tell a story with a sympathetic character, then solve that character’s problem. A dominating thread in his videos, we all relate to his characters and scenarios. While there is debate among professional Instructional Designers about the lack of ID theory in CommonCraft videos, there is no doubt as to their effectiveness on the adult learner. I know I’m just at the beginning of my learning journey here and that there are many experts to learn from. but this is the level of ‘explainability’ that I hope to achieve in our staff learning plans.


Do you have recommendations for creating courseware which inspires learning at the CommonCraft level? If so, please share. If it can’t be done, then why?

Marianne Lenox

As the Staff Training & Volunteer Coordinator for the Huntsville - Madison County Public Library in Alabama, Marianne is responsible for planning, directing, maintaining and implementing a comprehensive staff training and volunteer program for her library. She consistently strives to provide learning opportunities, professional information and technical training to ensure both better library service and the professional development of the Library’s staff and volunteers.

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