College & Research Libraries News (C&RL News) is the official newsmagazine and publication of record of the Association of College & Research Libraries, providing articles on the latest trends and practices affecting academic and research libraries.
Editor’s note: Julie Blume is currently reference librarian and coordinator of user education at the Health Sciences Library, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Before that she was assistant director of education of the Medical Library Association.
Earlier articles in this column have dealt with continuing education on a conceptual level, and with ACRL’s present and planned involvement. But ACRL is not alone in assuming a responsibility for helping members meet their lifelong learning goals. Many other professional associations have taken an active role in the professional development of their members. In this column, we will highlight some of their activities.
Every association offers continuing education to its members through its general meetings. Many offer preconferences, workshops, or short courses in conjunction with meetings to provide more intensive learning experiences. An outgrowth of this is the “traveling” workshop, in which a successful program is presented at a number of locations, either predetermined or on demand; the Medical Library Association (MLA), Southwestern Library Association (SWLA), and Association of Research Libraries (ARL) all have well- established programs of this sort. ALA and a number of state library associations are packaging popular workshops and meetings by making audio- or videotapes of them available for loan or sale. CLENE presently cosponsors a home-study correspondence course. Increasingly, other groups—including MLA, SWLA, and the American Association of Law Libraries (AALL)—are considering these individualized formats as a way to bring CE to their more isolated members. Telephone “talk-back” networks are yet another delivery mechanism being used successfully. A number of associations lend or sell other materials to assist members in their own professional growth: MLA’s syllabi, ARL’s management films, and the Educational Film Library Association s administration packets are a few examples.
Some of the less traditional ways in which associations are working in continuing education include the following: several state and regional groups arrange brief “job exchanges” between members, and a growing number now provide small grants to help finance attendance at programs. SWLA plans to develop self-assessment materials to allow individuals to determine reliably and systematically which are their top- priority CE needs. And a few groups—primarily those where the education function is administered by headquarters staff, so far—offer individual or institutional consultations as a way to identify and meet learning needs.
As the number of groups providing continuing education grows, so does the need to coordinate activities and disseminate news of what is available. CLENE’s Continuing Education Communicator (and its annual directory) is the most comprehensive CE alerting service for librarians, but many other associations (including ALA, SLA, SWLA, MLA, and now ACRL) regularly include short notices of upcoming programs of interest to members in their newsletters or journals.
A final note: too often we view ourselves only as academic librarians, and therefore as members only of ACRL; consequently we remain unaware of the excellent opportunities for CE developed and offered by other associations. However, we share many needs and concerns—we have all been affected by technological advances, for instance. If we look around, we may find other associations’ programs to be just as valuable as our own, and possibly more conveniently located or scheduled, or more reasonably priced. So keep your eyes and ears open!—Julie Blume, ACRL CE Committee.
