2019 Joint Conference ILA/NLA/NSLA

Fostering a learning environment for patrons is a core value in libraries around the world. This panel of three public librarians hold this as a guide post for librarians’ professional lives and will discuss how they've cultivated and sustained a learning environment to nurture their own and their coworkers’ growth through mentoring relationships. The three panel members are at varied points in their career: one a supervisor in a medium size library and wealth of career experience; one a librarian with an advanced degree in the library science who has worked in a variety of library types; and the third a library assistant with an advanced degree in education. Panel members will focus discussion and activities on building mentor/mentee relationships, how this practice has enhanced and improved their workplace and their job satisfaction, and how attendees can begin the process of building an environment and culture which encourages vulnerability, curiosity, and creativity within their own working cohort.