
Laura Farrant, Library Associate, Barrie Public Library, Ontario
Laura’s work on two courses, Dynamic Readers’ Advisory and Merchandising Library Shelves, has been very impressive. She has taken the opportunities to apply the work to make a real difference for her library and her reading community. Laura has been resourceful in using new ideas even though the pandemic has made doing so very difficult.
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Laura Griffith, Community Library Officer, Cambusbarron Library
Laura worked on the Understanding Book Appeal course during the first lockdown and so faced a considerable challenge, but she made a strong commitment to working digitally and achieved outstanding results.
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Rachel Laban, Assistant in Charge, Newbold Library. Derbyshire Libraries
The quality of the work that Rachel contributed on the Creating Powerful Promotions course was exceptionally high. Rachel has used the course, and the time away from the day to day running of the library during lockdown, to grow her creative ideas and plan for the time her library will re-open.
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Megan Jones, Virtual Library Assistant, Conwy Cultural Centre, Wales
Megan completed the Merchandising the Bookshelves and the Creating Powerful Promotions course while her library was closed. She tackled the work in both with wonderful energy and creativity. Megan used the ideas on both courses as starting points to develop her own ideas and plan new directions for the way she will work with readers and books in her library.
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Joanne Springham, Bexley Libraries
Jo has completed work on four courses with personal feedback so far, and is currently tackling a fifth. Jo’s commitment to online learning is exemplary. She has worked hard to overcome the barriers involved in remote working.
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Mark Kirkby, Leeds Libraries
Mark’s thoughtful and creative work on the Creating Powerful Promotions course was driven by a passion for helping readers discover something great to read and his broad knowledge of the collection.
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Thomas Maher, Wexford Libraries, Ireland
Thomas worked on our course Understanding Book Appeal, exploring how to use the reading experience and the look of the books themselves to help readers discover something new to them.
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Tina Callaghan, Library Assistant, Wexford Libraries, Ireland
Tina Callaghan was the first person to complete our newly-adapted course on Merchandising the Bookshelves without physical access to a library because of lockdown. Her work on the course set the bar very high indeed.
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Lynne Goldie, Library Assistant, Central Library, Stirling Libraries
Lynne used her time working from home during lockdown to take the course on Creating Powerful Promotions. It’s not easy to take online training, especially when away from work, but Lynne did a wonderful job.
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Sepe Illig - Stawell Library, Wimmera Regional Library Corporation, Victoria, Australia
Sepe took our Practical Outreach course as part of a large rollout to more than 100 staff across the State of Victoria in 2019. She works in a small country library that is very popular with its readers.
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Linda Longley, East Melbourne Library, Victoria, Australia
Linda took the opportunity of a partial library refurbishment project to use our Observation Research training to look at the way her customers were using the library.
Read moreNominate a Fieldwork Hero
The impact that our training courses achieve has a great deal to do with the individuals who use them. Every week, large numbers of library staff all over the world, who are taking one of our courses, put their learning into practice by making practical changes in their workplace. It’s not always easy to fit coursework into day-to-day library work, nor is it simple to achieve sustainable change. So this feature will highlight the hard work and creativity of our learners - their experiments, successes and what they learn from the ideas that didn’t work out. We are delighted to honour Sepe Illig and Linda Longley as our first Fieldwork Heroes. If you’d like to nominate somebody for this feature, please contact Anne Downes.
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