Personal growth & development

Format: Webinar, original date June 17, 2014
Hosted by: Infopeople
Length: 1 hour

What happens at your library when something doesn't go according to plan? Do you or your colleagues find yourselves:

• Apologizing and promising not to let that happen again?
• Pointing out the circumstances that were beyond your control?
• Worrying about how this setback might affect your budget or your career?
• Wishing that other people had done more to support you?
• Or just feeling generally down and discouraged?

We hear a lot about the need for innovation and risk taking in the workplace but not so much about the flip side of that coin: failure. Failure happens. Some even say that there is no creativity without failure. In fact, many success stories - Thomas Edison, Vera Wang, Jay-Z, Dr. Seuss - are prefaced by accounts of repeated failures. Even so, the library environment has not been especially tolerant of imperfect outcomes. If we want to continue to change and grow, we'll need to rethink how we deal with failure.

Presented by: Joan Frye Williams

Format: Webinar, original date November 12, 2013
Hosted by: WebJunction
Length: 1.5 hours

Working in a library can feel like a constant juggling act. We navigate competing demands and challenging situations on a daily basis in order to meet our mission and transform our communities. In this interactive session, discover how to handle these challenges proactively. Learn positive, practical tips, stress-reduction skills, and ideas for changing your personal work style. Learn strategies to help you face challenging situations that affect your whole organization and society-wide issues that impact the communities we serve. Feel better and be more effective at your work.

Presented by: Cheryl Heywood, Georgia Lomax, and Anna Shelton

Format: Self-paced Course
Developed with: funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services
Length: 1 hour

Don't let the pressures of working at the library bring you or your staff down. People want a work environment that is challenging, encourages trial and error, and makes them feel that they matter. It's time to make the workplace exciting again, all throughout the library's culture. Here are some things to do to make work fun again.

Course Objectives:

• Helping libraries cope with increasing pressures at work
• Providing meaningful things staff members can do to have fun
• Improving the work culture of libraries
  
  

Course Design: Colleen Eggett

Format: Webinar, original date May 18, 2021
Hosted by: WebJunction
Length: 1 hour

Are you prioritizing your own needs in your workday? Ever-increasing and evolving demands for library services, heavy workloads, and multiple requests from the public can create an environment for staff burnout. While some stressors are unavoidable, prolonged exposure to them can cause detachment, pessimism, and a loss of enjoyment in the library profession. Join us to explore the physical, behavioral and emotional barriers that lead to burnout, as well as methods to mitigate workplace stressors. We’ll look at specific stress-relieving techniques to introduce into your daily activities, and explore ways to bring self-care strategies to all staff in your organization.

Presented by: Nicole T. Bryan

Format: Webinar, original date January 14, 2020
Hosted by: WebJunction
Length: 1 hour

Do you know an amazing library director who stumbled into trouble unexpectedly? Are you one? Every library director seeks to be responsible and successful, but sometimes things go wrong. Understanding concepts for responsible leadership and strategies for fostering key relationships will boost your effectiveness and impact as a director, whether you are new to the position or have been around the block a few times. You will identify key relationships that need to be managed well⁠—your governing authority, your staff, your community, your profession, and last but not least, yourself. Embracing these relationships and working out a checklist of behaviors and communications for each audience will lead to more balance in your work. You’ll leave this webinar inspired by big ideas and motivated by practical steps that will refine your practice as a successful library leader.

Presented by: Jamie LaRue and Sharon Morris

Format: Webinar, original date January 15, 2015
Hosted by: WebJunction
Length: 1 hour

Our libraries and communities are experiencing the constant motion of changes in technology, demographics and services. The sensation of being afloat in an unpredictable environment can be thrilling as we contemplate the many new possibilities but also a bit scary because of the many unknowns. Join seasoned change manager Debra Westwood for a walk through the process of change to help us recognize our physiological and emotional responses to change and determine how our current skills and experience can fit into new ways of working. All of us, as library staff members, can get beyond just surviving change and learn to embrace and thrive in new environments.

Presented by: Debra Westwood

Format: Webinar, original date March 10, 2022
Hosted by: WebJunction
Length: 1 hour

We’re all aware that self-care is important. We recognize the value of eating healthy, getting plenty of sleep, exercising regularly. However, practicing self-care as a solo activity misses a critical aspect of our well-being: that we are social beings and we need social connection for deeper sustenance. In this webinar, we’ll explore ideas for expanding core self-care practices to encompass connections with work colleagues and more broadly with community members. Extending kindness and nurturing outward increases social cohesion and trust. The presenters will share practical examples and you will be encouraged to think about your own unique interests and how they might enhance your social connections.

Presented by: Brenda Hough and Betha Gutsche

Format: Webinar, original date January 17, 2012
Hosted by: Infopeople
Length: 1 hour

There’s a fair amount of doom and gloom out in library land, but futurist Joan Frye Williams and strategist George Needham are having none of it! These passionate library advocates believe that dealing with desperate economic times need not make us desperate.

In this upbeat webinar, George and Joan will explore how we can get out of the rat race that says “do more with less” and shift our focus to hope-engendering ways to “do different with less.” They’ll offer practical techniques for improving your own job satisfaction and moving your organization in a more positive direction.

Tune in to learn how we can all support each other, build trust and confidence, and develop services that recapture that feeling of success for ourselves and our communities.

Presented by: George Needham and Joan Frye Williams

Format: Webinar, original date March 19, 2015
Hosted by: WebJunction and the Association for Rural and Small Libraries
Length: 1 hour

Research points to how we can increase happiness and a sense of well-being in ourselves and others. Using interactive activities, participants will discover methods to improve joy, shift workplace culture, and offer programs for the public on happiness. You will walk away with a smile and a plan.

Presented by: Sharon Morris

Format: Webinar, original date September 22, 2020
Hosted by: Infopeople
Length: 1 hour

In this webinar, you will learn about mindfulness from a practitioner (Mimosa Shah) and a scholar (Beck Tench) who have spent the last five years collaborating on how to practice mindfulness in libraries with integrity and resilience. We will move beyond the common understandings and examples of mindfulness, looking from both a critical and optimistic points-of-view. We will discuss what mindfulness is, why we might practice it, and how to do so, with a special focus on library-specific issues.

Presented by: Mimosa Shah and Beck Tench

Format: Webinar, original date February 10, 2021
Hosted by: Infopeople
Length: 1 hour

How far would you go for your job? Would you bleed for it? Would you go to jail for it? Would you die for it? Would you kill for it? During the midst of a global pandemic, librarians are being asked to put their health, and potentially their lives, on the line in service to the public- both literal public, as in its patrons and the larger community, but also the idea of the public--the public good. And, according to vocational awe, the ideal librarian should die for it, happily, and without complaint.

So, what is vocational awe? Well, in short, it’s the idea that your work is good and sacred, and therefore is more important than any one person. Mission above all. When your work is holding up democracy and democratic values, it’s a lot harder to advocate for “simple” things such as equitable pay, reasonable work-life balance.

Presented by: Fobazi Ettarh