Jelena Jovin
Biblioteka Matice srpske, Novi Sad
jovinj@bms.ns.ac.rs
doi: 10.19090/cit.2019.34.22-31
No. 34 (May 2019), p. 22-31
Creating and Conducting a Workshop for Librarians
Summary
This paper deals with the process of creating an educational workshop, as a way of implementing an accredited
program within the context of continuing professional development in Serbian librarianship. The analysis is based on
three diff erent psychological workshops created and conducted in diff erent libraries, in the period 2014–2018.
In the initial part of the paper, general principles and the best practice examples from the IFLA Guidelines for
Continuing Professional Development are outlined, as well as practical guidelines for the effi cient creation of
workshops. In the research part, the paper deals with the case study analysis of functional fl uency in the behavior of
the person who conducted the workshops. The profi le interpretation is based on the anonymous evaluation carried
out after the workshop Motivated Librarians Can Move the World – Motivational Skills for Librarians (2017–2018).
In the fi rst phase, following the applied model of functional fl uency, the main categories are defi ned. The analysis
included 665 adjectives (collected from 400 questionnaires), used by librarians to describe the behaviour of the
person who conducted the workshop. The profi le shows that she behaved in a positive way, mainly spontaneously,
enthusiastically, and consequently, created a positive working atmosphere which motivated librarians. Also, her
professionalism, readiness, and expertise were frequently observed. The low score in the nurturing mode could
be a guideline for giving/seeking more feedback, showing empathy, support, praisal, or sensitivity for participants
needs. Additionally, it was pointed out that factors like dishonesty, giving socially desirable answers, or projection,
could aff ect the validity of data from the questionnaire. Finally, the supervision is suggested as a method for the
programme quality improvement.
The main aim of the paper is to emphasize the necessity of continuing professional and personal development of the
authors/persons who conduct workshops, which will consequently improve the quality of their workshops. Workshops
could be an effi cient method for experience-based learning, developing the social skills and creativity of librarians,
furthermore, a method for improving services and attracting more users to the library.
Keywords:
librarians, continuing professional development, educational workshops, workshop activity, creation
process, best practice principles, experiential learning, functional fl uency, evaluation
Submitted: 3rd March 2019
Correction to the manuscript: 16th March 2019
Accepted for publication: 19th March 2019
Creating and Conducting a Workshop for Librarians
by
Jelena Jovin
is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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