Professional Development in the Future

I did this offline because my internet is down so hope the links work:

I have written briefly about professional development in my past blog posts but this post will not discuss staff reluctance to commit to professional development but will be more about how I think PD will work in the future.

As you have gathered I reside in a regional area. The closest capital cities (we are smack bang
in the middle) are both 500km away – over 5 hours away by car. I mentioned that the State Library offers some wonderful PD opportunities during the year and they assist regional and
rural professionals to attend by offering travel funding assistance. I always use planes to travel to Sydney and these flights cost over $300 return. The State Library will reimburse the cost of an economy rail ticket which is about $170 odd return. So that really helps in reducing costs.

My POW grants the library staff a reasonable conferences and training budget, and as I have mentioned before, other staff are not keen on attending, most of it is spent on me!
There are two public library associations in NSW – Public Libraries NSW and Public Libraries NSW – Metropolitan. Public Libraries NSW used to be Public Libraries NSW Country but in the
hope of forming one association in NSW, (note they have been trying to merge Country and Metro for many many years), they changed their name and offer membership to all NSW public libraries not just metro. The association issue is for another blog post so I won’t delve into it now.

As a result of having two associations there is always a conference each year – used to be one country and one metro – this will remain. So there is SWITCH in Sydney one year and the newly branded IMPACT in whichever country town decided the next – next year it’s in Port Stephens http://www.plnsw.org.au/conference.htm
The registration costs of these conferences are very reasonable (half of a national conference and they go for the same amount of time 2-3 days or longer with satellite events) so permission to attend is not hard to obtain. And they are good quality conferences.

In comparison, and you really can’t compare a state conference with a national one but I will to justify my non-attendance, I have looked at the ALIA Biennial that is being held in Sydney next
year. The rego cost exceeds $900. Add to that accommodation costs which would also be around $900 it is very hard to justify. And while you may be saying that should work be paying for theses conferences – we are a single income family and the income I get in my position is at least $20,000 less a year than I would earn in the same role in a metro area. Yes the choice is mine to be in this job and live in a regional area but I just put that in there for greater understanding.

The other problem I have is that a state conference is being held in the same financial year so that would be two conferences in one year. A big hit to the training budget. Some may say that why don’t you miss out on one and go to the other. Yes I could do that but I actually feel that I get more out of a state conference than the national conferences – possibly because the state conference is totally focused on public libraries. So there lays my decision. Perhaps I will
change my mind on seeing the program for biennial but at this stage, probably not. Besides, I’ve never been to Port Stephens!!

Ok, I didn’t mean to spend so much time on that but it leads into my next line of thought which concerns the future of conferences. I’m sure I’m not the only one who took part in the Library 2.0 worldwide virtual conference. I thoroughly enjoyed participating via webinar/Blackboard technology. I actually see this as conferencing of the future. Library finances aren’t growing and the world is concerned about their global footprint – what better way to offer conferences. You still get audience interaction due to forums, chat and the ability to use voice to ask questions. And you get Twitter activity – this deserves a whole other post, but as a person living in a regional area I value conference/workshop/seminar/forum tweets – so to those that Tweet when they attend a PD activity – please continue to do so!!

I also like the idea of conference offering live web streaming. I haven’t yet paid to have live web streaming – mainly due to the inconsistency of internet access in my area (I know that this is not a problem restricted to regional/rural areas). But my net is down right now so I’m doing this offline, and when online my speeds are not that great so I haven’t gone down the web streaming path as yet. But it will be something I consider but I feel for me the interaction will be less than through the virtual conference due to the delay in video streaming and the possibility of drop out. But if they offered it at a slightly less price for delayed broadcast – eg supply after the conference, then perhaps I would be more likely to jump on board.

Anyway, I’ve rambled enough today. Here I was thinking I wouldn’t have much to write when blogging but it seems I do. I appreciate those who are taking the time to read it and comment so I don’t feel I’m interacting with an internet black hole!!

Inspiring Staff

As mentioned previously, I don't mind playing with technology and new tools. I take my profession seriously so make it my responsibility to stay abreast of new technologies and tools. However, I have very rarely had the opportunity to work with or manage staff that have the same view on self professional development.

In November I was lucky enough to attend the SWITCH conference. One of the presentaters asked how do we inspire our staff to use technology in the way we inspire our users? I'd really like to hear other's ideas on this.

Our library service has recently (over the past 1-2 yrs) started offering new tools/online services to our communities. I let staff know about these new services and I ask that they all become familiar with them as we will be the first contact point for our clients. I offer training and I ask that we "on sell" these new services with every client interaction. Does it happen? Not much at all. I'm still receiving calls about clients having issues with these new services and can I help them. I feel that as a professional staff member you should be able to assist. You should be the one who is "playing" with these new services in your own time to ensure you can provide the community with the service it deserves.

Unfortunately, the same can be said about online databases. It seems no matter the amount of training provided - staff do not always refer to them to answer queries. Often I have witnessed, not only in my current POW, staff checking the catalogue for something and saying no we have no information on that sorry. And not going any further. I feel that the reason my POW doesn't get more requests for finding information is based on the lack of success in the past due to staff not feeling empowered/confident enough to go beyond the walls of the library. Has anyone else encountered this? How have you overcome it? Can it be overcome?

Training is also a bug bear of mine. We are lucky enough to have a very proactive state library who provides some excellent workshops/forums/seminars throughout the year. Do you think I can get staff eager to attend? Yes it often means a very early start to the day to catch the first plane of the day and the last plane of the day back but the networking and learning opportunity is something that makes it so worth while.

I often feel I'm in an up hill battle trying to conquer these issues. And I don't mean to spend all my blogging time whinging as those in my POW are great people but I would love some tools/advice on what others have done to combat these sorts of issues.