Staff Experience
As a supervisor, I believe in celebrating diversity and building on the skills and talents of my team. As a colleague, I am highly collaborative and respectful of others' goals and deadlines. While most of my examples highlight staff that I have supervised, I also provide team training or coordinate peer-to-peer training.
Library Handbook
University of Houston
I am incredibly proud of this handbook. It took me and my team a little over a year to create it from scratch, but it was worth it. Not only did it help staff make consistent decisions, it was a strong training tool. It also provided a clear overview of the library for faculty and library administration.
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A few years later, a new Coordinator was hired to take my place when I left for WI. When I spoke to the new librarian, she said it was invaluable to her and helped her to onboard more quickly.
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Describe your image
Internal Team Website
Kenosha Public Library
During a meeting, my team requested a way to get more transparent and consistent communication, so I created a team site in Google sites. It is a "one-stop shop" of resources, such as our team handbook, work updates that affect our locations, and upcoming dates that need to be highlighted or pushed out to patrons. It also offers schedules, printables, and training in one place.
The site has been in place for a year and still shows a healthy amount of use by my team. Based on a poll, 70% found the site to be very helpful and the remaining 30% found it useful.
Hybrid Training Program
Kenosha Public Library
In March 2020, Kenosha Public Library closed all branches for five weeks due to the COVID pandemic. In order for my staff to continue to get paid, I needed to provide training opportunities that involved consistent communication and check-ins. At this point, I was only 3 months into the branch manager position and didn't want to lose momentum, so I created a comprehensive online staff training program called the Collab DigiLab using Google Classrooms.
Each week focused on topics that strengthened staff knowledge in areas of library databases, reader’s advisory, emotional intelligence, and Google Suite tools (word, sheets, etc. I curated and/or created mandatory and supplemental training and staff checked-in by completing an activity per module, as well as answering a question in chat and commenting on a teammate's answer.
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I was able to modify this training into a hybrid onboarding tool for new staff.
Student Success Program at UH Music Library
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As Coordinator of the Music Library at University of Houston, I had the opportunity to work with some really fantastic students. Everyone had skills and passions they were bringing to the library and I wanted to make sure to create an environment for them that not only paid them a wage, but gave them an opportunity to do work they could put on their resumes.
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If you'd like to read about the program from the students' point of view, click on the image to go to the webpage or CLICK HERE to read the pdf.