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E-books: Are Libraries Screwed

March 25, 2011 By

Since we’ve focused this month on training for e-books and e-readers, I thought it appropriate to take a few minutes to think about the future of libraries and books. Take a look at the following presentations by Eli Neiburger at the Library Journal/School Library Journal eBook Summit.

Let’s talk about this in the comments. Will electronic books make libraries obsolete? If all of our content goes digital what is the future for libraries? As trainers how can we prepare for this huge shift in the way content is consumed?

Eli Neiburger at the LJ/SLJ eBook Summit: Libraries Are Screwed, Part 1

Eli Neiburger at the LJ/SLJ eBook Summit: Libraries are Screwed, Unless… Part 2

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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And We’re Back!

March 22, 2011 By

ALALearning.org is back up and running. Thanks so much to the IT staff at ALA for their quick support–especially Jenny and Rob!

You should notice that the site loads much more quickly now. A team of round table members are working on redesigning the content and look on the site so you may notice changes in appearance over the next few weeks but our blog and RSS feeds should continue to work during this time.

Thank you so much for your patience during this time of transition and growth for the Learning Round Table!

Lori Reed
Managing Editor, ALA Learning

Admin

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We’re Under Construction

March 22, 2011 By

In order to keep up with the heavy traffic from all our readers, ALA Learning is moving to a new host and server. It may take a few days for all our links to function again. Thank you for your patience. We will give you an update when things are back to normal again.

Lori Reed
Managing Editor, ALA Learning

Admin

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E-readers, Libraries, and Training…Oh My!

February 18, 2011 By

After Christmas it hit like a storm. Questions from patrons about e-readers along with usage of NetLibrary and OverDrive soared. With the drop in price of Amazon Kindles and then competitors dropping their prices to match, e-readers went from being the tool of the tech-elite to a device that nearly anyone can afford.

According to Linda Raymond, materials management manager for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, new patron use of OverDrive is up 160% over last year, circulation of digital content increased by 399%, and holds on digital content increased 178%. Raymond says circulation would be even higher if we had more materials to meet the increased demand.

Evolution of Readers

Evolution of Readers by John Blyberg

With this surge in the use of e-readers and library lending of digital materials, questions from the public have increased as well. Nathan Cook, library service specialist II for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library works in the busy Telephone Reference department of the library. Cook says that for the first few days after Christmas nearly every other call was about e-readers–mostly from the elderly who received e-readers as gifts. Now the questions are down to five to six a day

Providing training on e-readers for staff at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has been challenging due to the fact that we have no money in our current budget to purchase the devices needed to conduct training. Luckily staff from the North Carolina Master Trainer program have been trained in the use of e-readers and are prepared with an “E-Reader Petting Zoo” which will be coming to Charlotte in April.

How has Cook answered this blitz of questions with no training? Cook says, “I’ve answered questions with a combination of guesswork, luck and the printed instructions that are linked from our Media Downloads page. Between using what we already have available on our page, and the Internet to check out the websites and FAQs of the individual readers themselves (or their makers’ companies), I’d estimate I am actually successful in helping at least 75% or 80% of the questions I get about these services.”

I’m always pleased when I see staff like Cook who are resourceful and seek out the information needed to get the job done. Other staff at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library have taken field trips or training classes to Barnes and Noble to try out the Nook. These are the people we need helping us to research and prepare for training! As leaders in training it is our job to not only provide training for staff, like Cook, who field such questions about tech gadgets but to also anticipate “the next big thing” that will impact our staff.

Our theme at ALA Learning for February and March will be staff training on e-readers. Were you prepared for the e-reader craze? How are you preparing now? Do you have any materials you’d like to showcase here on ALA Learning? In addition to posts from our contributing authors, we want to hear from you! If you have a story to tell or training materials to share, please contact me at webmaster@alalearning.org. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!



Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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Five Things I Learned in 2010

December 16, 2010 By

Inspired by other posts throughout the biblioblogosphere, I thought some of our authors could share what they’ve learned in 2010.

For me, this year has been about overcoming obstacles and adapting to change. What I’ve learned:

  1. We, humans, are meant to adapt. Thing big picture. We’ve adapted to global climate changes, changes from food gathering to agriculture. Change is hard. But you know what’s worse? Being obsolete. We have so many exciting things happening with e-books, e-learning, digital content, freedom of information–libraries are perfectly poised to embrace these technologies and become more than just a place to check out books.
  2. There is always a silver lining. Granted it may be hard to see the silver lining in the midst of the storm but just wait. Right before the rainbow appears you’ll see the glorious silver lining. I can’t tell you how many times I have wanted something, not gotten it, and then six months later realized how lucky I was to have not gotten what I wanted. Sometimes a better opportunity comes along or sometimes you realize what you wanted is not really what it appeared. Trust fate.
  3. Look for alternative solutions. If there is a program or initiative you feel passionate about and someone stomps on your idea, don’t give up. It could be as simple as reframing the idea or even changing the name of the program. Remember that it’s the end result that matters not how you get there.
  4. Focus on outcomes not tasks. Tasks are things that anyone can do. Outcomes directly support your organization’s mission and strategy. Outcomes should be where you focus your time and energy. Yes you still have to check your email and do mundane data entry but find ways to speed up, delegate, or eliminate time-vampires so you can spend the majority of your time on outcome related tasks
  5. Professionalism never goes out of style. As a trainer, learning facilitator, whatever you want to call it, we have the ability to influence others in our organizations. We generally interact with more staff than anyone else in the organization (except maybe IT). Use your power and influence to have a positive effect on the organization. Set the bar high. Don’t gossip or “roll around in the mud with staff” as one of my friends calls it. Don’t speculate on things that you don’t know about. Be honest. Be kind.

So readers, what have you learned this year? Feel free to comment or if you would like to submit a guest post please email me at webmaster@alalearning.org.

On behalf of the Learning Round Table, we wish all our readers a safe and happy holiday season!

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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Learning at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library

November 15, 2010 By

Learning at the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library has changed a great deal since I began working there 11 years ago when most training consisted of courses such as how to use Microsoft Office and how to search online resources and databases. In 2005 I moved from a busy regional branch library to the Human Resources department and created the Library’s Core Competencies program and then in 2006 I worked with Helene Blowers on our Learning 2.0/23 Things Program. Once those programs were complete we received less requests for computer training and more requests for soft skills training such as customer service and communication skills.

Why the change? I think our staff are more tech-savvy and willing to try new things and at the same time technology has evolved to become more intuitive for the end-users.

In 2009 we created a Learning Council comprised of about 10 staff members from all facets of the library. We have a person from technical services, IT, children’s services, adult services, and outreach on the team. There are also staff members from large branches as well as small. We’ve tried to have representation from all parts of the library. Once a year the Learning Council meets to discuss training for the next year. We discuss what’s working well, what’s not working well, what skills are staff lacking, what new products might staff need training in. I also meet with a random sampling of managers to ask the same questions.

Last year I took the time to go through the Library’s strategic plan and define competencies that support that plan. Then I focused training on supporting each of those competencies. You can take a look at the complete curriculum here. The courses for that program were conducted by subject matter experts within the library. We have a separate training curriculum for managers and supervisors that is administered by another member of our HR staff.

This year we face new challenges of reduced staff (from more than 600 to about 300) and reduced hours at all of our locations. The workload for our front line staff has not decreased though. If anything our libraries are busier than ever since the unemployment rate in the area hovers around 10%. This makes it difficult for staff to find time to leave their libraries to attend training.

We’ve been making plans to introduce online learning to our staff for the past two years. It took some time to get the infrastructure in place to do this (you need lots of bandwidth!). I knew what kind of solution we needed or at least what I dreamed of!

We use PeopleSoft for all of our HR functions such as payroll and training registration and record-keeping. I wanted a system where I could create content, then publish the content as courses for our staff to take at their convenience, then have the training records automatically updated in PeopleSoft when the training is complete. I knew this solution would be expensive so I posted this on my local ASTD email list to see what recommendations others might have. Dick Handshaw, president of Handshaw, Inc. contacted me to discuss my needs further, then donated hosting of the learning content management system Lumenix to the Library. You can read more about the LCMS in the April 2010 issue of Computers in Libraries. Look for the article When the Going Gets Tough, the Staff Needs More Training. Below you can see a preview of the course software and a demo course.

The hope is with self-paced learning modules, our staff can complete courses at their own pace and convenience. They will not have to sign up for a course months away and travel to a training site. Instead we can provide solutions for learning on demand. When you need the training it’s there and available to you.

Realizing that self-paced training takes a lot of up front time to develop we are also implementing WebEx for live, online or synchronous learning. WebEx will allow staff to attend training, remotely from any location with Internet access. There are a number of similar Web conferencing platforms available.

Because synchronous learning courses can be developed more quickly then self-paced courses, we’ll be able to get more courses out quickly to our staff. However keep in mind that synchronous learning is not the same thing as a webinar. Synchronous learning courses are limited to a small number of individuals and are highly interactive. If you want to become an expert online trainer look no further than InSync Training and their Synchronous Learning Expert certification.

Our plan is over time to have most of our training available online with supplemental face-to-face sessions offered with more hand-on activities. None of this would be possible without the great team of staff we have who provide content for me to put into the online courses. Training, learning, whatever you want to call it, is definitely a team effort. I work with an amazing staff who always find ways to share the information they’ve learned with other staff.

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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ALA Conference 2010: Trainers Talking and Acting as Leaders

July 7, 2010 By

You can’t, as a few of us suggested during a presentation on trainers as leaders sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA) Learning Round Table at the Association’s 2010 Annual Conference in Washington, D.C. last week, be in that city without thinking about leadership. The monuments, the government buildings, the sense of history that surrounds you makes it an undeniable presence—something that permeates your entire being as deeply as the hot and humid weather which greeted us.

So it was natural that a few of us—Maurice Coleman, Technical Trainer for Harford County (MD) Public Library and host of the biweekly T is for Training podcasts; Sandra Smith, Learning and Development Manager at the Denver Public Library system; and Louise Whitaker, Training Coordinator from Oklahoma’s Pioneer Library System—chose leadership as the topic for a 90-minute conference session that was part formal presentation, part panel discussion, and lots of interaction with approximately 50 colleagues who joined us for that Sunday morning gathering.

Drawing from interviews Lori Reed and I have been doing with Maurice, Sandra, Louise, and several others for Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers (to be published by ALA Editions in May 2011) to document the leadership roles that workplace learning and performance professionals are assuming in libraries and other organizations across the country, we began with the idea that leadership is positively explosive. When it is effective, it lights up skies. Draws people together. Creates collaborative opportunities and results which are not achieved in any other way.

Leadership, for most of us, doesn’t mean we have to be bombastic. It’s the day to day incremental efforts we make that lead to long-term and sustainable changes within our organizations. And that’s what our colleagues seem to appreciate most from us.

Lori and I, in our interviews and our own experiences, are not finding a one-size-fits-all model of leadership, nor is that what we expected.  Interviewing colleagues from the ALA Learning Roundtable and from other organizations throughout the United States, we are, instead, finding a group of very passionate, creative, and dedicated people doing what they believe is right. And even though Lori couldn’t be with us in Washington, D.C. last week, we were lucky to have a few of the people who have been guiding us so they could share a little of what we’ll be dealing with in the book.

Maurice, for example, discussed how the T is for Training podcasts draw colleagues from a geographical cross section of the country together every other week to discuss workplace learning and performance issues and solutions. Those live shows provide a first-rate forum for the exchange of ideas and have been instrumental in further developing a community of learners among those responsible for fostering organization-wide communities of learning.

Shifting gears a bit, Louise talked about how she revamped the entire way in which evaluations were conducted at Pioneer to determine whether the learning opportunities she was designing and offering to staff were actually producing results of benefit to the library, its staff, and its users.

During the final segment of our discussion, we moved to the heart of library trainers as leaders within their own organizations: Sandra provided examples of how she works from a position at the library management table to help shape and implement workplace learning and performance programs. By consistently working to be part of the decision-making process in terms of designing and offering learning opportunities for staff at Denver Public, she shapes as much as implements what her colleagues need and appreciate in a workplace learning and performance program.

Exchanges between presenters and audience members were as lively and creative as the topic we addressed; in briefly discussing ways to create something sustainable from our initial 90 minutes together rather than having that session be an isolated learning experience, one member of the Learning Round Table offered to collect business cards and set up an online discussion group for those who wanted to continue the conversation.

If that’s not creative leadership in action, I need to go out and do more interviews.

N.B. – For a different view of leadership on display at the 2010 ALA Annual conference, please see Paul’s Leaders Emerging article.

Paul Signorelli

Paul Signorelli is a writer, trainer, presenter, and consultant based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He works with clients to successfully facilitate the introduction of new technology into organizations; prepares and presents webinars and other online and onsite learning opportunities for a variety of clients; is actively involved in ALA and ASTD; continues to prepare articles for "American Libraries," the eLearning Guild's "Learning Solutions Magazine," and other publications; and co-wrote "Workplace Learning & Leadership" with Lori Reed for ALA editions. Paul can be reached at paul@paulsignorelli.com.

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ALA Annual: Library Trainers as Leaders

April 3, 2010 By

Library Trainers as Leaders
ALA LEARNRT
Track: Human Resources and Staff Development

Library staff development programs are in a state of flux. It is no longer enough for administrators to tell staff what training to offer. Workplace learning and performance professionals need to be part of the strategic planning of the organization. This interactive session will include audience participation and sharing of best practices as to how library trainers can step up their leadership skills and get a place at the library strategic planning table.

Speakers: Paul Signorelli and Lori Reed

Sunday, June 27, 2010 10:30am-12:00pm

Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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ALA Annual Preconference on E-Learning

April 2, 2010 By

BEYOND F2F: NEW METHODS FOR STAFF TRAINING – PRECONFERENCE
Friday, June 25, 8:30 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Limited time and busted budgets makes it increasingly difficult for library staff to leave their buildings to attend training events. In Beyond Face-to-Face, maverick library trainers Jay Turner and Lori Reed demonstrate how to engage learners with effective and innovative uses of e-learning. Walk away from this session knowing how to: identify free and cost-effective resources for presenting e-learning, apply instructional design best practices to e-learning, and recognize technical constraints in publishing e-content.

Speakers:

Jay Turner, Training Manager, Gwinnett County Public Library, Lawrenceville, GA
Lori Reed, Learning & Development Coordinator, Charlotte Mecklenburg Library, Charlotte, NC

Tickets:

ALA Member $130
Division Member $130
Round Table (LEARNRT) Member $110
Retired Member $110
Student Member $75
Non-Member $150
Onsite: $150

Event Code: LEA1

Register: Online

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Lori Reed

Lori Reed, Managing Editor of ALA Learning, has more than 15 years experience in training and is the Learning & Development Coordinator for the Charlotte Mecklenburg Library where she oversees the learning & development of a diverse group of staff at twenty libraries. Lori’s passions are performance consulting, learning strategies, and e-learning. Lori is coauthor, with Paul Signorelli, of Workplace Learning and Leadership: A Handbook for Library and Nonprofit Trainers. Lori also blogs at LoriReed.com and can be reached at lori[at]lorireed.com.

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