Professional Development: Why bother?

Session Time: 11:00 AM- 12:00 PM

For an organization to be effective and able to deliver its intended outcomes, its workforce needs to be skilled, competent and confident. In addition, the nature of libraries, across all sectors, means that they are subject to continual change, especially in today’s digital information environment. Similarly, the political and economic environments in which libraries operate mean that we need to be flexible, agile and continually evolving. In order for a library to embrace change, its workforce must continually develop its professional and technical skills. It could be argued that the ability for a library to sustain through strategically aligning itself with its parent institution is reason enough to bother with training and development, but there are many other reasons for library and information professionals to engage in Continual Professional Development (CPD) and for library managers to invest in it.