Continuing Education

I am a huge proponent of continuing education and I love to learn. I’d go back to school again if I could figure out how to pay for it! But, the great thing about my library is that my supervisor and director support me in my desire to learn more and to better myself personally and professionally. My favorite training classes to take are leadership course, I love learning about styles of leadership, effective leadership skills, and working on case studies to better understand how to be an effective leader. I’m always on the lookout for new books about leadership, motivation, and organization behavior.
Today, I’m taking a day-long Fred Pryor seminar on “How to Make the Transition from Staff to Supervisor.” I’m learning a lot about how to be a boss without being bossy, how to gain employee respect and how to move an organization forward. There’s not a lot of vertical movement in public libraries, most often you’re considered support staff, librarian, or director and it can be difficult to gain experience supervising staff, but with the help of continuing education courses, such as this one, I can better understand what makes a high-quality director.
I’m excited for the rest of the afternoon and to delve into a few Christmas gifts I received – Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us by Daniel Pink and Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us by Seth Godin. Yes, I am a complete nerd – I asked for professional development books for Christmas.
I’m always on the lookout for online training courses and seminars that I can take in my spare time, so if you have any must-take classes, please let me know!