Professional Development, Contributions, and Accomplishments

The Library Travel, Training, and Development Committee

By: Mariah Miller & Lauren DuBois 

The Library Travel, Training, and Development (LTTD) Committee, having concluded all business for the 2023-24 fiscal year, is pleased to present this report on the committee's financial transactions and development projects. The LTTD committee members of this term included:  

• Ivan Acero 
• Steffi Dardon 
• Lauren DuBois (co-chair, July 2023 - present) 
• Matt Furman 
• Martha Hernandez Galvan 
• Ying Jin 
• Amanda McClendon 
• Mariah Miller (co-chair, January 2024 - present) 
• Lisa Spiro (liaison) 
• Heidi Vieira (co-chair, July 2023 - December 2023) 

This year, the LTTD committee introduced new strategies to promote staff learning opportunities. We utilized the Fondren Events shared Google Calendar to announce various events, such as NISO webinars and Amigos Learning opportunities covering topics like metadata, DEIA in the scholarly landscape, and artificial intelligence. Additionally, we advertised webinars on the staff lounge bulletin board and contributed to the biweekly internal newsletter. 

In Fall 2023, LTTD launched Skilltype Spotlight, a monthly series curated by Mariah Miller, highlighting themed resources within Skilltype. This initiative, later incorporated into the internal newsletter, included a collaboration with the DEIA committee to feature DEI resources. LTTD also conducted a professional development survey to identify areas of interest for staff and gather feedback on how we can better support them. The results were discussed with Fondren Library management. 

In Spring 2024, our focus turned to events at Fondren. For staff members who used funding to take a virtual ASL class, LTTD hosted a meetup to encourage practice and community building. Heidi Vieira & Steffi Dardon spearheaded a collaboration with CAPC to host two highly attended public speaking trainings — the first session covered public speaking and presenting skills, while the second focused on professional email writing. LTTD also partnered with Thumy Webb to host a webinar about conferences, focusing on the ALA conference, to educate and inform staff members unfamiliar with such professional events. To showcase different departments, LTTD coordinated a month-long pop-up series featuring weekly demonstrations on practical topics such as book repairs and microfilm machines. These sessions were very popular, and we plan to continue them in the next fiscal year.  

The Shapiro Library Staff Innovation Award was granted to Anna Shparberg, Humanities Librarian for the Reference Department on April 30. The award ceremony is postponed until September 10, 2024, due to extenuating circumstances. Amanda McClendon chaired this subcommittee, which included Dr. Catherine Barber from the Center for Teaching Excellence, Sylvia Podwika and Dara Flinn from the Woodson Research Center, and applied chemistry graduate student Dona Mathew.  

The pilot project to connect staff interested in an MLIS with funding for their first course is ongoing. We believe this pilot program should transition to a regular offering, and discussions regarding funding and communication for reimbursement by the university are ongoing. 

The LTTD budget followed the prior FY cap at $40,000. Expenditures for FY 2023-24 were: 

The co-chairs wish to extend a hearty thank you to the committee members for their contributions this year. The committee is thoughtful in its discussions and decisions to improve the funding experience for all staff.