The group met 1 time this reporting period.
After reviewing the current PLA Strategic Plan, please tell us:
Describe the current work of this committee and how it supports our strategic goals. Include work accomplished, decisions made, and any recommended follow-up actions.
The webinars that the committee reviewed support strategic goals of Professional Growth, Transformation, EDISJ and Advocacy and Awareness through their focus and content. The webinars also supported the strategic goal of Organizational Excellence by providing high quality opportunities for continuing education and training from a trusted source. The group reviewed webinar proposals and selected eight for presentation between March and August 2023. Selected topics are:
1. Working with Community Partners to Offer Library Programming to Expectant Parents and Parents of Newborns
2. Putting the Let’s Talk Race Curriculum into Practice
3. Getting Started with Services to Decarcerated Patrons
4. Let’s Talk About It: Developing Staff Training Programs for Difficult Topics
5. Astronomy Programming in Public Libraries
6. Reimagining Digital Literacy to Address Emotion and Culture in the Fight Against Fake News
7. Creating a Personal Archiving Program and Do-It-Yourself Memory Lab for Library Patrons
8. Community Networking Small Library Big Impact
Do you see opportunities to better align committee work with those goals?
We feel the webinars selected aligned well with the strategic goals. It helped that the goals were highlighted by Angela at a virtual group meeting before the webinars were reviewed.
What recommendations do you have for in-coming committee members? Are there particular streams of
work in progress to be carried over into the new committee year? (January–June reporting period only)
We recommend that committee members are prepared to set aside some time to review the proposals. It’s an efficient, well-run committee that depends on individual work outside of meetings.
What specific activities will this committee undertake over the next six months to support that alignment? (July–December reporting period only)
Are there other PLA or ALA committees whose partnership and collaboration would accelerate meeting PLA strategic goals?
It may be helpful in the future to communicate/ consult with other committees such as the EDISJ committee on webinar proposals to encourage alignment across committees/ organizations. It may also be helpful to recommend proposals that aren’t selected due to sheer numbers to other committees, and/ or request help promoting selected webinars within committees.
Is there anything else about your committee experience you’d like to share?
This is a well-run committee that requires focused attention without being too time consuming. We appreciate the opportunity to have input on continuing education offered by PLA. Angela is great to work with, communicates well, and gives good directives and support. Thank you!
Submitted by Roosevelt Weeks and Krista Riggs on 05/31/2023