Effective communication is often what sets great leaders apart. Through listening, questioning, and refining, managers can assertively provide direction and effective feedback to staff. Learn about the importance of non-verbal communication, active listening techniques, how to influence others, and having difficult conversations with your staff. Effective communication can create the difference between a good workplace and a great one.

Social media can be fun, informative, and engaging - but to do any of this, it needs to be strategic. For libraries interested in expanding their social media reach while still maintaining regular duties, this overview will provide straightforward guidance for establishing goals and presence, analyzing audiences across platforms, and developing and deploying content on a regular schedule and with engagement in mind. With the right approach, social media can become a tool that is shared by library staff and helps define the library in the community.

Libraries reach different community groups and develop mutually beneficial partnerships to expand ideas, increase reach, and propel communities toward common goals. Focusing on the fundamentals of how to identify potential community partners and create these relationships, become empowered to reach out to the community to help develop unique programs that bring in new users. Identify common evaluation methods to predict and address challenges, ensuring that the library and the partner organization continue to connect in ways that benefit both.

Whether as a refresher or an introduction, this session details the art of the reference interview, including the behaviors of reference service providers, the steps for conducting an effective interview, strategies for when a transaction goes wrong, and tips to assess interactions.

Customer service expectations across industries are changing rapidly – and that trickles into libraries at the very same moment many are contending with reduced staffing and funding levels. But good service equates to more than just smooth transactions and satisfied customers. It helps build support and advances the relationship between the library and the community it serves.

For libraries already on their accessibility journey, identifying that next step can be difficult. Any library can become a more welcoming and functional space for all users by revising existing content to meet Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) standards and empowering staff to develop quality content. Learn best practices for creating and maintaining a usable web presence and identify ways to design materials for a wide variety of users. Session content builds on a foundation of accessibility knowledge and is intended primarily for content creators.

Surveys are an essential way to collect data about library services, programming, and community needs. But many libraries struggle to fully realize their surveys’ potential to collect high quality data. Good survey design is an artform that can be developed through practice. With a focus on design and development principles and hands-on exercises creating surveys for various library needs, new and seasoned survey designers will walk away more confident and capable to field their next survey.

The library has its idea for a project or service – and even has a funder in mind. But writing the grant proposal, tracking all the required forms and documents, and aligning to the funder’s priorities can be a daunting task. Get started on the right path with guidance for planning and organizing the elements of the proposal; analyzing and embedding funder priorities across the application; designing the plan with successful management built in from the start. The best practices shared reflect experience administering grant programs, serving as a grant reviewer, and winning competitive grants.

This informative introduction to Hyku, the powerful open-source repository solution tailored for small- to medium-sized libraries, will demonstrate its uses as both an institutional repository and a digital repository for cultural heritage items, open educational resources, and theses and dissertations. Hyku offers intuitive upload processes and robust bulk import/export capabilities. Its shared search functionality across multiple Hyku libraries can enhance discoverability and collaboration.