This season we have been focusing on topics that are important to library support staff. We discussed each of the ten competency sets in the American Library Association’s Library Support Staff Certification program. Some of these may overlap with prior episodes, but this season looked specifically at the material the ALA has identified as important. We will link to the ALA’s program, if you want more information or want to sign up for one of their classes. 

You can find our full show notes here, with links to everything we discussed today.

Earlier this season we talked about the three required courses in this certification program. This week we are talking about one of the competencies that is optional: Youth Services. Today is our last topic! It’s been great talking about all of these ideas with you!

“These competencies are for support staff working in a public library in service to youth, from birth through age seventeen. Services to youth include collection development, programming, providing readers’ advisory and reference services, and teaching information literacy skills and related activities.”

This was a quick overview of all ten of the topics in the ALA/APA’s certification topics for library staffers. And if you want to find out more about getting certified yourself, check the website (linked in our show notes), or just email us at admin@cmle.org.

It has been great talking about library skills with you all season! This is our final show of season nine – but don’t worry about us leaving you. We will be back here on Tuesday with another season of our series Browsing Books. We will keep looking at counties in Minnesota, finding an interesting fact about each, and suggesting books you can enjoy for yourself or recommend to your patrons. Subscribe today to our sister podcast: Reading With Libraries! We will start a new season of this book group next Thursday. Join us each week for a new genre, tasty beverages to share, and a lot of books to discuss!