Continuing Education and Professional Development for Library Staff

Aaron B. Pope
LIS-5970-980: Oklahoma Information Environment
August 11, 2016
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Introduction:
In a fast pace moving world people are looking for information to be right at their fingertips. In

the past people would go to their local library to find the answers to their questions. However,

times change and the internet was created thus that information now could be at their fingertips

any day of the week, at any time. So because of this marvelous and tricky invention people quit

taking their questions to the library and moved online for the most part. However, one thing

digital literacy has taught us is “Know Your Sources” meaning that there is a lot of false

information out there, as if the national news media was not a good enough example of this. So

as librarians we must stay up to date on true and false information out there. In order to do this

librarians must also keep up to date on all the latest developments for our field or risk becoming

archaic. Thus, is the importance of professional development or continuing education for

librarians.

As we continue to learn, we continue to adapt with the times and for the needs of our patrons

and we are then validated in their eyes by our fresh, educated prospective. In turn we are then

needed and sought after by our patrons once again. This is why professional development or

continuing education are so important whether that is in conference form, classroom form or

online training. By continuing to learn and grow ourselves we are better equipped to handle the

needs of our patrons and answer tough questions they might have for us. Hence we are seen as

relevant and an important part of society again. However, due to financial hardships in our

country and budget cuts how does this effect professional development and continuing education

for librarians within the state? What ways are we able to overcome budget short falls and still

receive the training we need? Finally, what are some alternatives to the traditional conferences

that could be useful and still be a learning experience for librarians?

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These are fascinating questions which we will be discussing in this essay about professional

development and continuing education.

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One thing that can be deducted from this class is the fact that each institution handles this topic

in very different ways. Some are very similar in nature while others are completely different on

the spectrum. Let’s take a look at two examples which are on different places of 0this spectrum

and see just how different they can be. First, let us look at the Stillwater public library. Their

director is Ms. Lynda Reynolds who has been with the Stillwater public library for over a

decade. She explained to the class that they have quite a flexible budget because unlike an

academic university library their funding comes from the city of Stillwater. Yes, they do have a

little funding from the federal government but it’s mostly an extra padding for operations of the

building. They also rent out their facilities to the community for events as well. Most funding

that comes into the library goes right back out into the city of Stillwater this includes the building

rental fees. However, there are times when a “friend” of the library will donate money to the

library for specific things and that goes right into the library’s bank account directly instead of

going into the city’s budget. A great example of this is the drama group they get to have come

every Thursday. This is provided by one of the “friends.”

Ms. Reynolds did say though that they receive so much more funding from the city that they

could never give back the amount they receive each year. It’s because of this budget that she is

able to encourage her librarians to go to conferences or to seek out continuing education in

subjects as Customer Service or technology training. If they do not want to go to a conference

she encourages them to do webinars or online trainings because their budget is pretty secure. In

the most recent history they did have some budget issues, so they decided to get rid of a part of

their magazine and journal subscriptions. They kept the most important subscriptions and went

online databases instead with the others which helped to save a ton of money. She also
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encourages professional development because for 2013-2014 she was Oklahoma Library

Associations president of public libraries division.

This is great that Stillwater is able to afford to do those things! However, there are other

institutions in our great state that are not able to do this. For example, let us now look at

Northeastern State University in Tahlequah.

Our class discussed this same topic with NSU’s Head of Technical Services Librarian, Linda

West and Executive Director of the library Steven Edscorn. When asked about what type of

Professional Development or Continuing Education do they receive both Ms. West and Mr.

Edscorn looked a bit disappointed. Side Note: The author felt bad after asking them this

questions because he could tell when their faces fell in disappointment. However, Ms. West did

respond that she gets professional development through webinar’s from ALA and OLA. This

way she is able to stay up to date on the latest trends in library development and does not have to

travel or spend the universities money for doing so. When there is an OLA or ALA conference

nearby she might get to go to one of those. However, because they are in such a rural part of

Oklahoma that is hard to do because the distances are so far away from most locations chosen by

these organization. So the webinars tend to be her lifeline to the outside library world and Ms.

West preferred form of professional development.

Locally as it is with worldwide, librarians are beginning to look at cost saving measures to keep

libraries afloat and yet still maintain the status quo as best as they can. One area that has taken a

major hit in funding everywhere has been the professional development or continuing education

for librarians. This has come about due to the fact that a lot of the fees that come along with

professional development events are things like travel expenses (Including a rental car), food and

hotel expenses, registration fees, materials fees and many more. Many universities and schools
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use to provide funding for their librarians to go to these conferences or classes. Thus allowing

the librarians to keep up to date on all the latest happenings in the world of Library and

Information Science.

However, with all these little things, and sometime big things, the schools and libraries just

cannot afford to send people anywhere now due to budget cuts in education funding from the

government. This is a shame, for many librarians whether seasoned or newly graduated, agree

that continuing education and professional development is an important factor of the job. La

Chapelle and Wark wrote about these sentiments in their journal article entitled “I’ve Got My

MLIS Now What? Further Educational Opportunities for LIS Professionals.” They said:

“Mid and near-end career library and informational science

Professionals realize that continuing education is an effective

way to move forward on the career track and to stay relevant in

the field but may see a return to school as frightening,

time consuming, and expensive.” (La Chapelle and Wark 2014, 1)

So, what are some options for the future then for librarians who want to continue receiving

continuing education or professional development? Well, Hines wrote about this in a journal

article for Pacific Northwest Library Association Quarterly. She said she gathered a group of

Library and Information Science professionals together and quizzed them on what forms of

continuing education and professional development they preferred. She believed they would

chose the online training. However, she found that most preferred face to face training instead.

She then discussed what to do because of the budget short falls. She says:
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“I also discussed unconferences and other less-structured events at

each presentation. A small but significant portion of each audience

had some experience with these events and was universally in favor

of them as a lower cost and more interactive way to learn and share

information.” (Hines 2014, 105)

So, there are some definite possibilities for budget crunched institutions to provide continuing

education and professional development costing little to no money. According to Hines local

organizations could offer “unconferences.” This is pretty much a large get together of people

with no formal structure of events until the first meeting. They just learn from fellow librarians

and exchange ideas with one another. So you’re learning from you peers and fellow librarians

while maintaining very very low cost to no cost depending on where you meet. It can still be

fun while conducting business.

There was mentioned before, webinars, which are offered by national organizations for

education but over the internet. These are usually free or also very low cost. There is also online

training courses that one could take which usually are very low cost. Librarians can also get

together to make a book club. They could then read materials relevant to library and information

science profession. They could then discuss the material together in a form of networking

together. Another way librarians can get together and learn from each other, even from long

distances, is through forums on webpages where professionals can discuss topics and issues on

the internet chat forum.

Even for the financial challenged librarian there are ways in which you can find extra funding

to help you go to a conference. If someone does want to go to a conference they could look for

grants or scholarships which might help offset the cost and then maybe they could afford to pay
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for the rest of the trip. There are also scholarships in which you might work for your admission.

For an example of this let us look at OLA where someone might work a few hours at a booth to

receive a free day at the conference. There are many alternative routes to getting to continuing

education and professional development but sometimes you have to do the research yourself to

find them.

As our field continues to grow and change, it will be interesting to see how different the future

might be for professional development for librarians. What new inventions or ideas will come

up in the near future that will allow us all to better connect but still be miles and miles away

from one another. Could it be that although the budget shortfall is hitting us hard now, that this

might be a blessing in disguise? Could there be some good that would come out of this money

strapped time? I’m thinking about situations like the depression where there was no money and

everything was in a very barren state.

However, even out of that there were things that were produced to help jump start the

economy of drought stricken states. For instance, like certain water irrigation systems were

created to conserve water and better arrogate the land so that the land would not blow away like

it was doing during the dust bowl. Through these irrigation systems the land was able to be

planted once more for food and needed plants like cotton and thus farms were able to be put

back into production. Although we are not that hard pressed right now there is still much good

that can come of such hard times.

This makes me think of one last example of persevering through monetarily strapped times.

Tulsa Community College, Metro Campus is a wonderful and amazing example of this

perseverance. A lot of the funding has been cut to TCC due to state budget shortfall but they are

doing everything they can to get the most out of every dollar allocated to them. In order to
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reduce costs TCC allowed a few jobs to disappear through attrition when those people decided

to retire. This saved some money that way. However, there materials budget was cut too for

building repairs and updating. So they live without dated styled furnisher but in turn they were

able to get noise canceling for their meeting rooms and T.V.’s in those rooms. So there is a

happy balance of loss and gain right now. I know Ms. Kash would love to have more monetary

income but she is doing a fantastic job right now with what she has.

In Conclusion:

In conclusion, let us think positively that in the future there will be an economic bounce back

and we will be able to fund Professional Development and Continuing Education in our

institutions fully once again. Until that day though, could we not just find more cost effective

and yet still majorly beneficial alternative ways of continuing our education for those of us who

are a bit strapped for cash? There are plenty of options to choose from as we have just seen. I

believe it is possible that there are still yet more options to come but they just have not been

invented yet.
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Bibliography:

1. Hines, Samantha Schmehl. 2014. "Future Modes of Professional Development." PNLA Quarterly

79, no. 1: 103-106. Library, Information Science & Technology Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed

August 14, 2016).

2. La Chapelle, Jennifer, and Laura Wark. 2014. "I've Got My MLIS, Now What? Further

Educational Opportunities for LIS Professionals." Partnership: The Canadian Journal of Library &

Information Practice & Research 9, no. 1: 1-4. Library, Information Science & Technology

Abstracts, EBSCOhost (accessed August 14, 2016).