SINTO Training Programme

I have just circulated the SINTO Summer Training programme to members of SINTO. As I mentioned in my previous post I have been trying to put together an integrated programme of workforce development events under the heading Preparing for the Future. At the same time I am exploring several different themes so there is something for everyone.

The first theme is progress through technology. OK, I pinched that from the Audi adverts; it translate into German as Vorsprung durch Technik. I have invited Chris Armstrong and Ray Lonsdale to deliver their workshop on Developing and managing e-book collections. Chris recently published The 2011 Guide to Free or Nearly-Free E-books and copies are available to delegates at a reduced price. I plan to follow that up with a workshop on mobile technology and access to information.

The next theme is developing the skills of staff. We are running a workshop  Dealing with difficult users. Most of our users are anything but difficult but with any public facing service there will always be times when staff have to deal with difficult and possibly agressive users. The aim is to defuse these situations and turn them into something positive but staff have to know what to do if things start going wrong. I suspect that with decreased staffing levels, front-line staff are more likely to have to resolve such issues without immediate support from senior staff. Libraries have a duty of care to ensure that their staff have the confidence and skills to deal with such situations.

The final theme is Impact of library services. This has several strands; how to measure impact; why we need to measure impact; and what that impact should be? We will beging with the keynote speaker at the SINTO Members' Day. Ronan O'Beirne will be talking about his book From Lending to Learning. If libraries are about lending then impact can be measured with issue figures. However, if libraries are about something else (or something else as well), then we need different ways to measure impact.

I hope to follow up this theme with events about community engagement, advocacy, and measuring impact.

Details of the current programme can be found on our website.