Managing Student Assistants:



Kimberly Burke Sweetman

Continuing Education for Libraries

Pre-designed Training Workshops

(Note: All topics can be adapted for online learning)

Revitalizing Library Spaces (New!)

What do today’s library users want? How do you plan spaces that will work well in the long term? This workshop teaches strategies for library space planning. Participants will learn how to think critically about library space options, how to identify the needs of library users and how to best meet user needs when designing library spaces. The class will cover preparing for both low cost incremental changes and high-end renovations. (Half Day)

Customer Service in the Digital Age (New!)

The digital age can be both alienating and for customers and provide us with important tools for improving customer service. How can we leverage the digital tools available while still providing personal service? Participants will be introduced to a wide variety of tools that can improve customer service, how to identify the digital services that users want and how to maintain a personal level of service in today’s automated library. (Full Day)

Managing Change (Newly Revised!)

Change can be difficult to deal with in any workplace, but the fast pace of change in libraries is particularly difficult. Designed for library supervisors who will need to lead staff (at any level) through change, this workshop teaches the potential impact of the stress of change, how to properly prepare others and ones self for change, the most common responses to change and how to deal with them and effective responses to change and how to instill them in others. (Full Day)

Building a Service Culture

It’s easy to talk a good game about customer service, but how do we as managers actually take active steps towards enabling the library staff to provide good customer service? The answer lies in creating a service culture. Drawing from the literature of organizational psychology, this workshop introduces supervisors, managers and team leaders to the concepts of organizational culture and climate and teaches participants how to examine these within their own organization. By changing the organizational climate (the message sent to employees) to a clear, consistent message, managers can re-align the organizational culture (the shared meaning employees use to make sense of their workplace) to one of consistently high service. (Full Day)

Emotional Intelligence

What does it mean to be emotionally intelligent and how does the concept relate to success in leadership? Emotional intelligence—including self-awareness, self-discipline and empathy—are far greater predictors of success at work than traditional intelligence. Participants will learn what emotional intelligence is and how to develop EI traits in themselves and others. Participants will also learn how those traits relate to success on the job, particularly for those who are or aspire to be leaders in the library field. (Full Day)

Coaching Skills for Managers

Coaching is a critical tool for improving job performance in both quality and productivity. Mentoring can be a vital resource for professional advice and problem solving. By focusing on these important supervisory concepts, this program will help participants to take a more active and successful role in staff development. Participants will learn the benefits of using coaching skills, learn strategies for effective coaching and mentoring of both groups and individuals, discover how to maintain momentum and avoid getting “stuck” or challenged in meeting responsibilities, and develop coaching skills to improve workplace performance. (Full Day)

Project Planning

In today’s library environment we are continually asked to do more with less. Service demands are increasing while staffing and funding remain consistent at best. Effective project planning and project management are essential to the efficiency that is necessary in today’s streamlined workplace. This one-day workshop teaches participants how to create a project plan, manage a project, effectively communicate about the project, evaluate the success of the project and close a project. (Full Day)

Group dynamics

Whether you are leading a team or a team member, and understanding of how group members work together can help your team to improve their collaboration and productivity. Participants will learn about the characteristics of effective teams, common barriers to team efficacy, the benefits of working in teams and ways to build team productivity. Through a variety of lessons and activities, students will develop their skills for leading and working in groups. (Full Day)

Managing Student Assistants

This workshop teaches participants how to get the best performance from their student workers. Attendees will learn how to improve the quality of student assistants I their department. Through a variety of exercises and discussions we will cover writing job descriptions, “selling” your job to prospective student assistants, financial aid basics, interviewing techniques, the importance of training, coaching & counseling and staff retention strategies. While this course is primarily designed for academic libraries who employ work-study and regular students, I have also adapted it for Brooklyn Public Library’s professional intern program. (Full Day)

Fundamentals of Library Management

This course provides a practical approach to becoming a successful library manager, including strategies for planning, organizing, staffing and evaluating library departments and programs. Through a series of discussions and exercises, students will gain real-world tools for improving their management skills and develop confidence in their ability to supervise and manage. (Full Day)

Resume Improvement Workshop

A potential employer may spend as little as 5 minutes reviewing each resume. This workshop will help to ensure that you clearly convey your knowledge, skills and abilities in that short time. By receiving specific feedback from a seasoned library administrator participants will learn what to include (and what not to include) in a resume and cover letter, how to more effectively present themselves on paper and have an opportunity to get their questions answered on the application process used in most academic libraries. Participants are required to submit a resume to the instructor 2 weeks prior to the workshop and must feel comfortable with feedback shared kindly, professionally and publicly. (Half Day)

Communicate Your Way to Better Patron Service

Communication is at the heart of every patron interaction. This workshop teaches participants about some common (and avoidable) communication mistakes that create service problems. By learning how to approach customer interactions, library staff at all levels will learn how to make the service interaction rewarding for both library users and themselves. Participants will learn how to ask the right questions to help their users, how to recognize and reduce stressors that can interfere with good service, as well as strategies for dealing with difficult situations. (Full Day)

Reference Interview? Question Interview!

Reference librarians have been using the reference interview to clarify users’ information needs for decades, if not centuries. During this workshop participants will learn how to use reference interview techniques to get at the heart of any question a patron is asking. They will learn strategies to overcome obstacles to communicating effectively with library users and identify specific Question Interview techniques where they need to grow. (Note: Material in this half-day workshop is covered in the full day “Communicate Your Way to Better Patron Service”)

Time Management

Library staff at all levels are given increasing responsibilities and have ever-growing demands on their time. This workshop presents participants with several strategies for dealing with a high level of inputs, proven ways to defeat procrastination, mechanisms for managing priorities, strategies for effective delegation and the power of defining the first action. (Full Day)

Helping Employees to Get Things Done

This workshop, specifically designed for library managers, covers ways in which managers can structure work to assist their reports to have better time management and project management skills, and therefore higher productivity. The workshop covers improving the clarity of delegation through such tools as the project charter, strategies to help reports conquer their procrastination, and coaching techniques to improve job performance. (Full Day)

Library Service Assessment: Using Data to Make Decisions

Cities, towns, colleges and universities increasingly require data and assessment to justify and evaluate programmatic changes related to service. Learn how to measure what counts! This full day workshop covers the difference between, and strengths of, qualitative and quantitative data; various ways to gather data; how to run focus groups; how to plan effective surveys and how market research can help you to run your library. (Full Day)

Top Notch Communication Skills for Success

Communication is an essential job function for all of us. Effective communication skills can help to make your job a lot easier and a lot more enjoyable. Superior communication skills can even lead to promotion on the job. Participants will learn the value of “situation communication” and strategies for communicating with a variety of people of different genders, generations and ranks; how to give and receive feedback; how to handle emotions under pressure; how to communicate with techies to get the support you need; what your non-verbal communication may be saying that isn’t helping to get what you want and how to run effective meetings. (Full Day)

Achieving a Beneficial Work-Life Balance

Having a good work-life balance is essential to performing effectively on the job. Participants will learn strategies for keeping organized, how reducing clutter, leaving work on time, beating procrastination and getting things done on time and the value of living a balanced life. (Half Day)

Interviewing and Hiring

Making good hiring decisions is one of the most important responsibilities of managers. Librarians are frequently called upon to serve on search committees. This workshop will show participants how to identify core job competencies and screen candidates to be sure they can successfully fulfill the job requirements. Students will develop confidence in their ability to make the best possible hires by learning how to identify essential job competencies, writing appropriate interview questions, strategies for checking references, and the importance of the law when it comes to hiring. (Half-Day)

Creating Your Work Portfolio

The most successful careers have a planned trajectory, but how do we determine that trajectory? How do we represent who we are on a resume or in a tenure or promotion portfolio? Participants in this workshop will learn how to critically evaluate their knowledge, skills and abilities, determine gaps between what they currently know and what they must know to get where they want to be, develop a satisfying career trajectory, and clearly represent their accomplishments on paper and verbally. (Full Day)

Practical Risk Management for Library Projects

Increasingly, library work is project based, but are we prepared to respond to problems when they occur? Drawing on project management fundamentals, this course teaches the basics of risk assessment. By learning how to conduct a thorough risk analysis, participants will learn how to identify the 20% of risks that cause 80% of the problems in projects, how to respond to ensure an optimal outcome (Half Day)

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