Posts tagged Lori Reed
Help the Learning Round Table Choose a Logo
Feb 5th
Last year we changed our name from CLENE (Continuing Library Education Network and Exchange) to the Learning Round Table. With the name change comes the need for a new logo. Over the past month a team of board members has been working with a graphic designer to create a new logo for the Learning Round Table. We’d like to share the two final logos for your feedback.
Tell us what you think! Which logo best represents the Learning Round Table? What impression do the logos give?
Give us your feedback by adding a comment (or comments) to this post. Let us know which logo you like the best and why. We’ll take comments through Wednesday, February 10, 2010. The final decision will be determined by a vote from the Learning Round Table board members.
Note: Why is there no color? Since a logo may be used in color as well as black and white, a best practice in logo design is to select the logo in black and white first then determine the color scheme. Once we have a decision on the logo the same team will work on choosing the colors.
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8 Easy Ways to Get Connected With ALA Learning
Feb 1st
I hope you enjoyed getting to know the ALA Learning authors these past few weeks. Tomorrow we return to our regularly scheduled posts bringing you the best training and learning news, information, best practices, and thoughtful discussion.
Today I’d like to share some additional ways for you to get connected with ALA Learning, the official blog of the Learning Round Table of the American Library Association.
- Comment and join the discussion on our posts.
- Become a fan on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ALALearning
- Join our Linked In Group: http://www.linkedin.com/groups?home=&gid=2700921&trk=anet_ug_hm
- Follow us on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ALALearning
- Subscribe to our posts or news by RSS or email: http://alalearning.org/subscription-options/
- Join the Learning Round Table Email List: http://alalearning.org/about-the-learning-round-table/email-discussion-lists/
- Become a Learning Round Table Member–Only $20 on top of your ALA Membership: http://alalearning.org/join/
- Plan to join us for one of our events at PLA, ALA Annual, or ALA Midwinter.
As always feel free to comment and contribute to the discussion. If you have a topic to suggest for a post drop me (or any of the authors) a line at webmaster@alalearning.org.
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...27 Questions with Lori Reed
Jan 28th
1. Your One Sentence Bio
- Lori Reed, mom, library enthusiast, lifelong learner, passionate about helping people, team Edward!
2. Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
- I moved my blog from LibraryTrainer.com to LoriReed.com yesterday. I chose my name because it will remain constant. I want the freedom to change directions with my blog as needed.
3. What is your professional background?
- I worked for several years as a firefighter/EMT and discovered that I love training. I conducted training for firefighters and EMTs for a while then moved to computer training (better hours and pay). I worked for a few for-profits and found that I really missed the environment of public service. A job came open at the library in Charlotte for someone to do computer support and training and it seemed like the perfect fit. 10-years and three jobs later and it’s still a great fit!
4. What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
- I coordinate the staff development at my library. This means that I don’t get to do as much training anymore. Instead I do more strategic planning. I look at the mission and vision and goals of the library and translate those back into competencies that staff need to achieve the library’s goals. I work with managers and staff to see what skills our staff need to accomplish the library’s goals and to get their jobs done well. I rely on a core group of staff trainers to facilitate most training sessions. I also serve as an internal consultant to help staff trainers develop their courses and materials.
5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
- I think the most important thing is that we be strategic with our training. If you align your training with your library’s vision, mission, and goals then you are right on track.
6. Where do you get your training?
- Wherever I can! North Carolina State Library’s Master Trainer Program, Mecklenburg County, InSync Training, Learning Round Table, ASTD, ISPI, conferences, blogs, Twitter, friends…maybe the question should be where don’t I get my training.
7. How do you keep up?
- The first rule of … wait … wrong question. I follow other people who keep up with subjects I’m interested in. It saves me a lot of time! I live by GTD principles and use my Outlook calendar and tasklist religiously. It also helps to have a clear personal definition of keeping up. For me keeping up means keeping my inbox at or near 0 and having some idea of what is going on in the world. For other people keeping up may mean knowing about every new idea or gadget that is coming out.
8. What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing right now?
- I think traditionally libraries have been slow to adapt and change. The world around us is changing at a faster and faster pace. To remain relevant and cherished by everyone in our communities we need to adapt faster. We need to take risks and be willing to try new things that might fail. We need to look at failure as a success and staying the same as a failure. We need to reduce the digital divide that exists among libraries. We need to continue to market our services. We’re being asked to do more with less–maybe it’s time to get more creative with funding and partnerships. We desperately need a new universal brand that reflects 21st century libraries!
9. What are biggest challenges for trainers?
- Training is not always the solution. Training does not solve problems that stem from poor management or software that’s not intuitive. These are bigger issues at an organizational level. Traditionally trainers have not been in a role to contribute to organizations at that higher level. That needs to change. Trainers need to be part of the strategic planning of libraries and need to have the flexibility to implement complete performance solutions. When training is called for, developing quality training takes time. It’s more than happy butts in seats. Like everyone else, trainers are being asked to do more with less or worse to deploy bandages that will not solve long term performance or organizational issues.
10. What exciting things are you doing training wise?
- We recently implemented a curriculum for staff training. We also received a generous donation of Lumenix (a learning content management system) from Handshaw, Inc. I’m working with my staff trainers to convert existing face-to-face training into self-paced, online training. It’s a very slow process because it takes exponentially more time to create self-paced modules that replace what we were doing face-to-face. I’m hoping to implement live, online training this fall. Fellow ALA Learning blogger Paul Signorelli and I are co-authoring a book on leadership for trainers that should be available this summer.
11. What do you wish were you doing?
- I’m doing everything that I want to be doing, I just wish there were more hours in the day to do more and to sleep more.
12. What would you do with a badger?
- Recruit it to the Learning Round Table and teach it to fish!
13. What’s your favorite food?
- Anything that is shared with good conversation and good company.
14. If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want to have with you?
- A lifetime supply of insect repellent.
15. Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds out of a pickle?
16. Post it notes or the back of your hand?
- Post in notes are a GTD nightmare! I use my Outlook/Blackberry tasklist to action items. I use eWallet on my PCs and Blackberry for random information that I need to remember like passwords, printer IP addresses, security codes, etc. eWallet is well worth the small cost!
17. Windows or Mac?
- Doesn’t matter just give me a browser.
18. Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
- Potty training!
19. What’s your take on handshakes?
- Ackward early in my career, but now I’m comfortable with them. If I know you though, watchout, I’m more likely to hug you than shake your hand!
20. Global warming: yes or no?
- Ask him.
21. How did you get into this line of work?
- See question 3.
22. What is the best part of your job?
- Just about everything! Seeing the ripple effect that occurs as a result of good planning and strategy. Seeing staff whom I’ve worked with get promoted to new jobs. It’s all good!
23. Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
- Everyone else has a good point of wearing your own shoes, but if you have a passion for learning, love helping people, don’t mind public speaking, and have good problem solving skills then you might want to consider a career in training workplace learning and performance.
24. Sushi or hamburger?
- Hamburger.
25. LSW or ALA?
- I belong to both, and they both have pros and cons.
26. What one person in the world do you want to have lunch with and why?
- Only one? I’m going to break the rules and say the ALA Learning bloggers. I think it would be amazing to get these 12 people all in the same place at the same time. I can’t imagine what the energy would be like!
27. What cell phone do you have and why?
- A pink Blackberry Curve. I really wanted an iPhone but I can’t get a signal in my house using the Blackberry Storm or the iPhone. Verizon gives library employees a 19% discount which is substantial off a bill with two phones and two data plans. I also must have a phone that syncs directly to Outlook (See questions 7 and 16).
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Paul Signorelli’s “Getting To Know Me” Post
Jan 19th
1. Your One Sentence Bio
I was born; have been deeply immersed in writing, training-teaching-learning, and working with libraries and nonprofit organizations for many years; am honored to sometimes be mistaken for ALA Learning colleague Peter Bromberg when the two of us are lucky enough to be on Maurice Coleman’s T is for Training podcasts at the same; and plan to die someday—which, I believe, covers all bases.
2. Do you blog? If yes, how did you come up with your blog name?
You’ll find me blogging here at ALA Learning and at Building Creative Bridges. I came up with the name because “Librarian In Black,” “Library Trainer,” and “(almost) Bald Trainer” were already taken by writers better than I’ll ever be, and Building Creative Bridges seemed like a good way to describe what I hoped to accomplish through the blog and everything else I’m doing.
3. What is your professional background?
As far as I can tell, I’ve worked for newspapers, magazines, a couple of schools in Japan, the Monterey Peninsula Museum of Art, the San Francisco Conservatory of Music, and the San Francisco Public Library system, and with a variety of other groups and organizations, but if you’ve heard differently, please don’t hesitate to contact me.
4. What training do you do? staff? patrons? types of classes?
My position as Director, Volunteer Services & Staff Training for the San Francisco Public Library system had me providing orientations, software introductions and updates, and other learning opportunities for staff and volunteers; current training-teaching-learning efforts include writing e-learning courses for Infopeople and LE@D (Lifelong Education @ Desktop)–http://www.leadonline.info/–and conducting workshops at professional conferences.
5. What training do you think is most important to libraries right now?
We need to be combining sessions on practical matters (software upgrades, customer service, leadership and collaboration skills, conflict resolution, health and safety issues) with inspirational/visionary/long-term matters (how to continue serving library members and guests on site and online, maintaining libraries as on-site and online community centers, becoming collaborators with members of the communities we serve rather than one-way providers of information and services).
6. Where do you get your training?
For training-learning, I try everything I can think of, including conversations with colleagues; on-site and online workshops and courses; blogs/RSS feeds; books; journals, magazines, and newspapers; webinars; conferences; speakers at ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) and ALA (American Library Association) meetings and conferences—and I’m sure that’s only about half the list.
7. How do you keep up?
Keep up?
8. What do you think are the biggest challenges libraries are facing
right now?
One of the many large challenges is to recognize and respond to their increasingly huge role in being learning centers for their local and online communities while not abandoning any of the important and life-changing roles their members and guests still expect them to fulfill.
9. What are biggest challenges for trainers?
All too often, we have training-teaching-learning as part of our job rather than as the entire focus of our job, which leads to lots of half-finished projects, lots of stress for everyone, and less than optimum learning opportunities; focusing on our own continuing education and our primary roles as workplace learning and performance providers might be the best lesson-by-example that we can provide to colleagues whose workplace focus is equally divided to their own detriment and the detriment of those they serve.
10. What exciting things are you doing training wise?
Trying to be creative face-to-face and online in the way I respond to learners’ needs: delivering a synchronous online learning opportunity through live Google Chat, for example, was a fun distance-learning experiment with a University of Nevada, Las Vegas colleague and his class in October 2009.
11. What do you wish you were doing?
Writing; oh, wait, I am writing.
12. What would you do with a badger?
Teach it to use Google Chat so it could more effectively participate in synchronous online learning opportunities.
13. What’s your favorite food?
Pizza. Purchased somewhere in NY, NJ or the Philly area. If you’re not buying pizza in one of these geographic areas it’s not really pizza. Sorry, it’s not. (OK, an exception for Chicago deep-dish. As long as you qualify it.)
14. If you were stranded on an island, what one thing would you want
to have with you?
A confirmed flight back to the mainland.
15. Do you know what happens when a grasshopper kicks all the seeds
out of a pickle?
I live in San Francisco; can someone tell me what a grasshopper is?
16. Post it notes or the back of your hand?
No, thanks.
17. Windows or Mac?
OK, but definitely not on the first date.
18. Talk about one training moment you’d like to forget?
Can’t remember; must be an occupational hazzard since at least one other ALA Learning colleague has responded similarly.
19. What’s your take on handshakes?
A handshake is certainly a pleasant way to avoid open warfare in a learning environment.
20. Global warming: yes or no?
Best response I’ve seen is Jill Sobule’s “happy song about global warming”; who am I to argue?
21. How did you get into this line of work?
My supervisor at the time told me I had to take over the organization’s staff training program if I was going to keep my job; I found that to be tremendously motivating.
22. What is the best part of your job?
Being part of what ASTD refers to as the effort to “create a world that works better.”
23. Why should someone else follow in your shoes?
This question reminds me of a story from Martin Buber’s Tales of the Hasidism, which I will now paraphrase to the best of my recollection. The gist of it: Samuel, a very devout man who is struggling to be good in the eyes of the Lord, approaches the Rabbi and asks, “Rabbi, should I try to be more like Moses or more like Abraham?” The Rabbi replies, “Rather than trying to be more like Moses, or more like Abraham, the Lord would be pleased if you tried to be more like Samuel.” And that’s all I have to say about that.
24. Sushi or hamburger?
Depends on who is asking.
N.B.: Special thanks to Peter Bromberg for allowing me to insert, verbatim, his answers to questions #13 and #23 here. I figured if I couldn’t match his responses for cleverness, I might as well just outright steal them and see if I could further confuse colleagues about which of us is speaking (please see response to question #1, above).
(No Ratings Yet) Loading ...Working With and For Each Other
Dec 14th
ALA Learning Round Table friend and blogger Maurice Coleman was right on target, as usual, with the first of two online discussions about what we’ve gained through workplace learning and performance offerings this year. (The second of the two discussions, under the auspices of Coleman’s ongoing T Is For Training biweekly sessions for those interested and/or involved in library training programs, is scheduled for Friday, December 18, 2009 at 2 p.m. EST/11 a.m. PST and will remain archived online for those who cannot attend.)
Coleman, like many who contribute to the ALA Learning Round Table and make it a first-rate resource for trainer-teacher-learners, offers an antidote to the isolation trainers sometimes experience. Through T Is For Training sessions, he provides a chance for trainers to talk with, listen to, and become familiar with colleagues from library training programs all over the country; share best practices and discuss why some practices are far from the best; contribute to a growing repository of training materials maintained on Delicious by T IS for Training participants; and have some fun while engaged in all the previously listed endeavors—all while becoming familiar, through practice, with how online communities develop and interact effectively.
The payoff is significant. Struggling with a training problem? So are others, and they can offer suggestions as well as useful resources so you don’t have to solve the problem yourself. Wishing you were feeling a bit more creative in resolving workplace learning and performance issues screaming for your attention? T Is For Training participants have been there, too, and can, with the sense of humor they deeply cherish, rekindle the creative sparks you thought had vanished. Looking for colleagues willing and able to commiserate, collaborate, and show you how they have already done what you are trying to do? They’re available, willing, and able because they understand that in giving, they also are receiving in ways they often can’t anticipate.
Even more significant is the reminder that one great resource often leads to another. The list of regular participants—“The Usual Suspects” on the left-hand side of the T Is For Training page— serves as a reminder that there is a tremendous amount of overlap between the T Is For Training group and those of us who are also involved in the ALA Learning Round Table. If you want to see what others are writing, you’ll find articles from those usual suspects on individual blogs as well as on a variety of engaging group blogs.
The more we explore, the more we discover—including the revelation that colleagues who at one time appeared beyond our reach are actually quite accessible. Participate in T If For Training or become engaged in the ALA Learning Round Table, and you’ll discover that first-rate samples of organizational learning plans are just an e-mail or phone call away from Charlotte Mecklenburg Library Learning & Development Coordinator Lori Reed. Or that an E-Learning Preparedness Checklist is available from Gwinnett County Public Library Training Manager Jay Turner. Or that Huntsville-Madison County Public Library Staff Training and Development Coordinator Marianne Lenox has produced the equivalent of a semester-long course on learning theory and resources in a single article here on the Learning Round Table blog. Or that WebJunction Learning & Curriculum Developer Betha Gutsche has edited the highly detailed Competency Index for the Library Field.
We have, as the recent T Is For Training episode reminded us, learned a lot in 2009. And one of the most important lessons is that by participating in online discussions, or responding to a blog posting, or engaging in a Google Chat or Google Talk or Skype interaction, or simply making the time to pick up the phone and call a colleague for assistance, we are working with and for each other on behalf of all we serve.
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