Library workers face extraordinary events and transformations bigger than they can organize and implement alone. Think of your last project, perhaps the purchase and installation of new software, the creation and distribution of satisfaction surveys, or the redesign of a departmental workflow.
A project is any event that is planned and managed. Success depends entirely on whether the project is formally managed from its inception to its implementation and eventual completion. Projects sometimes affect only the department that a manager supervises. Other times the project affects more than one department or even multiple departments within or even outside of the library.
In this series, participants will develop skills and experiences needed to be exemplary project managers and committee chairs in library organizations. Interactive and dynamic activities such as stimulating intellectual discourse, reading suggestions, and in-class exercises will accompany each week’s lectures. The four-part tour of project management will culminate with a final project based on project management principles learned in class that can become the basis of a project plan you can present to administration.
This course will:
- Prepare participants to successfully implement change in their libraries;
- Develop skills to manage staff, including superiors, peer librarians, and library staff;
- Provide opportunities to discuss suggested journal articles; and
- Offer participants the opportunity to develop a project plan and proposal to administration for approval.
By the end of the course, you will be prepared to create a professional project plan and presentation to administration that outlines your plan from its inception to implementation.
Registration for this series requires a strong commitment to attending all four sessions, as each session builds upon the previous one. Participants are strongly advised to register only if they can attend the entire series. Each session will be recorded, with exclusive access to the recordings available for BLC members.
Session 1: Components of a Project
In week one’s session, we will discuss the basics of project management. This high-level view prepares us to understand not only why we should formalize planning and implementation processes, but what it involves, and the duration of such initiatives. Most importantly, we learn each project needs leaders to drive committees forward. Suggested readings and exercises will be provided.
Session 2: The Planning Process
In week two, we will learn how to organize our project starting at the beginning with a planning process and concluding with post-project assessments. Pilot projects will be highlighted. Research and exercises will be provided.
Session 3: Tools for Success
In week three, we will discuss key characteristics of leading teams with authority and influence. We will look at tools such as AI, literature reviews, data collection, and Gantt charting to drive your project forward in a timely and productive way, leading to the ultimate goal, project implementation. Suggested readings and exercises will be provided.
Session 4: Project Finales
In week four, we discuss AI incarnations and benefits to consulting AI when designing your project. We will view samples of AI-generated project components which will stimulate group discussions and feedback. Sample Gantt charts and project components from participants will be presented and discussed.
Speaker
Debra Lucas-Alfieri, Librarian Emeritus, D’Youville University, retired from her position as the Head of Reference, Interlibrary Loan, Public Services, and Information Analysis and Instruction, to follow her dreams of innovating libraries. Debra’s research, practice, and expertise is demonstrated in her book chapter, "Project Management in Libraries: An Overview for Middle Managers," which appears in Middle Management in Academic and Public Libraries (2011). She authored Marketing the 21st Century Library: The Time is Now (2015), a librarians’ textbook, published by Chandos, an imprint of Elsevier. She also published academic journal articles in Collaborative Librarianship, the Journal of Interlibrary Loan, Document Delivery & Electronic Reserve, the Journal of Library and Information Science, and Library Leadership and Management. Additionally, she served as an editor for the Journal of Library Innovation. For fun, she crafted and published encyclopedia articles for the Encyclopedia of Power, the Encyclopedia of Time, the Encyclopedia of Anthropology, and the 20th Century Encyclopedia of Pop Culture. Alongside clinicians, university faculty, and university students, she co-authored and published articles in the nursing and pharmaceutical fields.
Debra has been teaching online library science classes, seminars, and webinars for over a decade, working with national organizations such as ALA, RUSA, and Library Juice Academy. She has presented web-based symposiums for organizations in Florida and Montreal. Debra has vast experience and knowledge of the history of libraries and its mission and her research and philosophies are highly regarded, studied, and cited across the world. Through teaching and writing, she has impacted students and scholars across the globe.
Before she retired, she was appointed Faculty Senate Parliamentarian and served from 2018 until retirement in 2022. During her university tenure, she was awarded a Sabbatical and Faculty Research Grant in 2014, a Faculty Fellowship Award in 2015-2016, and a promotion to Full-Librarian Academic Rank in 2016. Her retirement created the synergy to collaborate with countless librarians who will then drive our profession and institution of libraries successfully and strategically into the future.