Boost Your Skills with Training Options from My Library Is...

How many times have you registered for a webinar and sunk into your office chair when the Outlook alert comes up and you totally forgot about it?

I’ve been there many times.

How many times have you received an email after the webinar with a link to watch later, but that never happens because you get busy and the email becomes buried in your inbox?

I’ve been there many times, too.

Is there one place to access free tutorials on my own time?

Yes, and you can access them right now on the My Library Is…website!

When I first heard about the My Library Is…website, I didn’t really know what to expect. I was pleasantly surprised at all the free and easily accessible resources available. One of the resources that stuck out at me was the Training webpage. You can sign up for upcoming training sessions or check out past sessions. The Online Training webpage (past sessions) currently has over 20 different tutorial on various topics including social media, patron privacy, and the future of libraries.

The first tutorial that I watched was Graphic Design for Libraries by Aaron Schmidt. Aaron Schmidt is a user experience expert who has presented internationally on the topic on library innovation and design. I first heard about him from the book he coauthored called Useful, Usable and Desirable: Applying User Experience to Your Library. Check out his book…your library probably has it in their professional development collection!

I wish I had this tutorial back when I started as an accidental library marketer over 10 years ago.

I didn’t realize how many hats I was going to wear, and one of them was being a graphic designer. Aaron does a great job breaking down designing for libraries including information hierarchy, typography, and using grids to name a few. He shows before and after examples that he redesigned to better communicate the message. He also offers recommendations for books and tools to further educate yourself on graphic design.

We are embarking on a website design project in 2020, so I will definitely be watching Aaron’s three-part series on building a user-friendly library website available now on the My Library Is…website.

To conclude, I would like to mention that watching any of the tutorials is a great way to develop your skills and knowledge without leaving the office. You may even impress your supervisor by including all the tutorials you watched in your next performance evaluation!

Our guest blogger is Sasha Vasilic. Sasha is the Head of Public Relations and Marketing at the Niles-Maine District Library.