The OLC’s Professional Development Committee has been busy this summer crafting a new approach for education and training opportunities for OLC members in 2018 and beyond. The Committee recently completed its goal of assigning liaisons to each Committee and Division Action Council to assist with educational program planning. In addition, the Committee has been working on a historical database of OLC educational programs and speakers, refining the process for submitting program proposals, and effectively promoting the OLC’s Certified Public Librarian and Certified Public Library Staff programs.

The Professional Development Committee liaisons will work closely with the OLC’s Committees and Division Action Councils and will provide assistance and input, as needed, when plans are being discussed for programming for conferences, workshops and webinars. These individuals, along with OLC staff, will be able to provide comprehensive information about all of the educational events that are being discussed by other groups within the OLC, identify opportunities for collaboration, and be a conduit for information so that education and training can be approached from a global perspective with the needs of the entire membership in mind.

PDC Liaisons – 2018 (PDF)

Based upon member feedback and conversations with several Division Action Councils, the Professional Development Committee has identified needs in the following areas of library service and proposes to host educational events in 2018 focused on:

It is the Committee’s perspective that all of the OLC’s Divisions and Committees can identify and propose programs that would be applicable to one or more of these areas of library service. Initial plans are to create separate work groups for each of these education events, composed of OLC members who will assume the responsibility for the broad themes for the events, setting the programming focus, establishing timelines, and making the final decisions regarding educational content. While the decisions on the dates and locations of these events are pending, ideally they would begin in spring 2018 and be approximately 5-6 weeks apart in locations throughout the state.

The Committee will soon make a call for planning committee members. Although no specific Division or Committee is expected to automatically become part of the event planning committee, some will naturally gravitate toward their respective areas of interest and focus. The Committee’s goal is to have the preliminary plans for the events completed by the OLC Leadership Conference on Nov. 9, at which time they will share more details about how to submit program ideas and how you can get involved.