Professional Development Program at ILF

I received the following e-mail from an attendee at my ILF presentation on Professional Development at Lake County Public Library:

Hello, Carolyn,
I didn't make enough notes about your adopt a database program. Could you give me a review of how you operate that? Do staff members do one database at a time? Do they switch around to keep up with all the databases? Do they test them daily? More than once a day?
Also, what is the "And the Winner is.." program? Actually, I would like to know a little more about everything on slide 6 -- the Informal Database Training slide.


The slide that is referenced is in the slide presentation posted on this blog. I'll describe each program in a separate posting.


I initiated the Adopt a Database program in 2006. Reference librarians are assigned three databases to monitor for a six month period. There is a Database Checklist that they use to check their assigned databases. The goal of this program is two-fold: 1) to catch any problems with the databases early and 2) to familiarize staff with the library's subscription databases.


At the end of the first year, I asked staff to write up three questions & answers for each database that they monitor.


At the end of 2007, they were asked to give their recommendation on whether or not the library should continue to subscribe to their databases. And during the year they were asked to give a short presentation (10 - 15 minutes) highlighting the features of one of their databases at our monthly Reference Staff Meeting.


This is the checklist that they all use - they are asked to perform searches on a weekly basis and contact either our webmaster or myself if they find a problem.

Assigned Databases:

_____________________________

_______________________________

_______________________________
Date:

Database:

Searches Function: Individually/Through Power Search (federated search)

Database Available: Staff Computer/Information Station (Public)/Remotely

Links Work: Power Search/Alphabetical List Page/DB in Library Page

Results Display Properly: Yes/No

So far it has been very effective as a learning tool and for catching any database problems. Your comments are welcome. Carolyn