by Renee Holden, Head Editor, INALJ Nebraska

Cool New Webinars

Working in a public library, my time is often spent at a reference desk answering questions from patrons, but I try to squeeze in webinars on various library topics at least once per week.  This keeps me updated on a variety of library issues and topics without ever having to leave the library.
Here is a list of really cool webinars that will help you get up to date on a variety of library topics from the comfort of your office or cubicle:

Grace Under Pressure
(http://www.webjunction.org/events/webjunction/Grace_Under_Pressure.html)

• This webinar gives awesome tips and skills to reduce stress in the library workplace.  It helps with all types of stress…patron stress, co-worker stress, and economic stress in the library.

Serving Readers
(http://www.webjunction.org/events/webjunction/Serving_Readers_Beyond_the_Basics.html)

• This webinar is my personal favorite. It helps librarians get readers advisory to those patrons who sometimes do not come into the library, but still need help deciding what to read next.  It shows you that through social media and other online-based tools, you can reach readers that don’t come into the actual brick and mortar library.

Absolutely Free (and Practically Unknown) Online Tools You Didn’t Know You Needed (https://infopeople.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=369

• I just saw this webinar and I thought that this was extremely informative. It helped me discover a huge array of online tools that I could use to help the patrons that come into my library better. Some of the tools I have heard about and there were several that I didn’t even know existed.

Graphic Novel for Adult Readers
(https://infopeople.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=188)

• I am a reader’s advisory librarian in my public library and I thought that this was a very well done webinar.  This webinar talked about graphic novels to recommend to adults.  Not all graphic novel readers are teens.  Sometimes adults come into the library looking for books that they used to read when they were young.  Many adults are happy to discover that graphic novels are very similar to the comic books of their childhood.  This webinar teaches librarians, who may not know very much about graphic novels, how to recommend great graphic novels for adults.

Adults Just Wanna Have Fun
(http://www.librariesthriving.org/workshops/archives#adults)

• This is a cool webinar for those public librarians like me who are having a hard time finding adult programming to engage those 20 and 30 somethings.  It helped me identify those program titles and subjects that this demographic would find interesting and actually come to.