Professional Development

Conference reports and more from ZSR Librarians

Leslie at SEMLA 2024

For this year’s Southeast Music Library Association’s annual meeting, I served on the programming committee, and as a virtually-attending committee member, co-hosted the Zoom and reported audio/video glitches to the onsite managers. On the program this year was a survey of graduate-level instruction for music students at four schools (FSU, USC, UNCSA, and App State).... more

ALA CORE Forum 2024-A ZSR Recap!

The ALA division, Core: Leadership, Infrastructure, Futures, began in 2020 through the combining of the Association for Library Collections and Technical Services (ALCTS), the Library Information Technology Association (LITA), and the Library Leadership and Management Association (LLAMA). This was the third annual conference held this year in Minneapolis, with 470 folks attending, up from 400... more

Association of Librarians & Archivists at Baptist Institutions (ALABI) Presentation

Marcia Phillips, coordinator of the Davie County Public Library History Room, has been working as a part-time Metadata Specialist for Special Collections & Archives over the past year. Her focus has been on describing the tapes we had digitized as part of our 2018 CLIR grant. She recently gave a presentation to the Association of... more

Meghan at the 2024 NCLA Leadership Institute

On September 10th-13th, I attended the NCLA Leadership Institute in Black Mountain, NC. The mission of the NCLA Leadership Institute is “to create opportunities for learning and skill building in leadership and mentoring”, and to “cultivate an improved understanding of self and others while inspiring participants to serve in leadership roles within the profession at... more

Denice at the 2024 Teaching and Learning AI Conference in Orlando, Florida

As the integration of artificial intelligence, data science, and information literacy is one of my research areas and I dived into the AI pool, finding the Teaching and Learning AI Conference hosted by UCF in Orlando, Florida was nirvana. This was the second year of the conference and conference attendance exploded from 400 in the... more

Summer 2024 ALA Course: Fundamentals of Cataloging

This summer I completed a 6-week virtual course on the fundamentals of cataloging, offered by the American Library Association (ALA). I’m not a cataloger, but I reference catalog records every day in Special Collections & Archives. I stepped up to this challenge so I could improve my understanding of these records. It’s been more than... more

Society of American Archivists 2024: back and better than ever

Well, or as good as it can be when you’re in the underground maze of the Hilton Chicago basement meeting spaces! This was my triumphant-ish return to SAA; I haven’t been since 2018, I believe, a surprisingly long hiatus! That explains how physical I found the conference – I found myself back in my room... more

A DLF Forum in the Summer?

Typically the DLF Forum occurs in the Fall. With the exception of the 2019 event in Tampa, I’ve had the pleasure of attending every Forum since 2017. This includes the two virtual Forums that occurred during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The pandemic has significantly transformed how the conference’s planning committee undertakes this... more

East to West Book Repair Workshops Across North Carolina

Libraries are so important to our individual communities. This was my primary thought as I finished a week of book repair workshops across North Carolina. I began teaching book repair in 2004 with the North Carolina Preservation Consortium (NCPC). In 2004, I was involved with NCPC and had two training days at the Etherington Conservation... more

Summer @ IRDL

On Memorial Day 2024, I began the virtual 10-day Institute for Research Design in Librarianship (IRDL). Participating in this institute was a transformative experience that significantly enhanced my understanding of the research design process and various research methods. This intensive program was structured to guide participants through every stage of designing a robust library science... more