Back in the early 2000s, the OLC's Futures Initiatives recommended the creation of core competencies. The Library Education Committee then began the creation process in 2014. What we did was review the competencies of many other professional library organizations like the American Library Associatiion and WebJunction and had the OLC divisions and committees review them and offer feedback. We also spoke to certified librarians and library staff at a luncheon at the 2014 Convention to get their opinions and views on the competencies as well. At the fall meeting we took all of that work and did one final revision before submitting to the OLC board for approval. They were officially approved by the OLC board in the fall of 2014.

The goal of the core compentencies is to be a tool that can help libraries handle various aspects of job creation and management. They're designed as a framework, but not the final word on jobs.

The idea is that you can use these central ideas of what the OLC believes a library employee should be capable of doing. But because no two libraries are the same, libraries can then take this framework and shape and adapt them to fit their unique environment.

We also are aiming to align these with all of OLC's continuing education opportunities. From now on, each educational and training event offered by OLC can now be identified by the competency that they address. They unfortunately don't appear to have made it into your printed program guide, but are available on the online version. That should be fixed by the next time around.

The 41 different competencies are arranged in a couple of ways. I've included in your handout an example of each, but to print the whole thing for everyone would be a good amount of paper. To find the full set you can go to olc.org and check under the resources tab for core competencies.

The first way you'll find them organized is the competency summary section that includes every competency and to which section they apply. This can be a helpful guide to seeing the overall group of competencies.

The second way to view them is by how they align with any given job in a library. In this layout, the competencies are aligned so that you can view a particular position and just the competencies that apply to that specifically. Let's take a look at the summary page first.

This is the the first of the competency summary pages. As you can see there are the competencies listed on the left hand side with their definition after that, and then which positions they apply to. Looking at this page, you can see that Acquisition only applies to materials selector and technical services. But Adaptability and Basic Computer Use / Hardware Knowledge are both core competencies and they apply to every position regardless of where they are located in the library.

And as a reminder, this is a customizable tool. What works for one library may not work for another. Remember that this is a basic format and it can and should be adapted to each library's unique situation.

So within the whole competency framework, there are some competencies that are labelled as core. The competencies in general are the measurable knowledge, skills, and abilities critical for successful job performance, and the core competencies are those that are central and foundational to success in an organization.

This list here is the full list of core competencies, and it's laid out in a format like you would see if you were looking at just a specific position. As you can see from this list, these combine a lot of the basic areas of library work from intellectual freedom to basic computer use. It's a wide variety of skills that you should make sure you're capable of. After all, these will be the foundation for everything else you'll do in your work with public libraries.

Additionally, each of the position lists will always list the core competencies on them, but will also include the extra competencies that apply to that specific position as well. That way you don't have to compare between two different lists all the time. That said in some situations you will need to combine lists together. For example, instead of having a page for every potential position in a library, we opted to aim for the most general forms we could. So you'll find a page for Children's Services, and a page for Management and Administration. However, you won't find one relating to the Children's Manager position. As you can probably assume, the way you handle that is by looking at both lists in this case. You'll want to make sure you're covering the children's competencies in addition to the management competencies as well.

Any questions so far?

So let's now that we know what they are, let's cover how to plan your career using the core competencies. Just like the guy in the photo, it's important to have a plan when it comes to your career. You don't need to have your entire future planned out, but at least knowing what you want to do next and where you're going is a good idea.

The first step in planning your career is to assess your current position. You'll want to review the competencies associated with your current position to make sure you're meeting the goals of that position. Because if you're doing well in your current position, you'll be in a better place to move into a new position. You might not be as hireable in a new position if you're not capable of doing the one you're currently in. So let's take a look at how we do that now.

So like some of you, I'm currently working in circulation, and when it comes to evaluating my position, all of the competencies involved in the core set apply to my current position, in addition to two other competencies, Patron Awareness and Patron Instruction.

So to be covering my goals, I should already have the core competencies down pat because those are required for any position in the library. But now I have to gain experience with two more competencies as well.

This is a good opportunity to discuss the levels of variation within the competencies. Take for example patron instruction. It's defined in the competencies as, "The ability to present instructional content in diverse ways to groups and individuals and select appropriate delivery methods according to
learner needs."

The level of instruction varies depending on the position. In a circulation position, there might not be much programming or teaching classes like there would be in a reference position. But what often does happen is explaining policies to patrons, answering questions that they ask, and working with patrons in the computer lab. So there is variability within the competencies. This means you'll need to assess your position to see where your responsibilities lie in order to establish what level of detail is involved with these.

Are there any questions at this point?

We've looked at a position now and evaluated the various competencies related to it. So now the question you need to ask is are you meeting the goals of your current position?

If not, go back and work to align yourself with what those current goals are before you aim for another step in your career.

But we're going with the idea that you do meet these goals. In that case you're ready to prepare planning for your future position.

The first step of which is to look at the competency list of the position you want to evaluate the goals that position holds.

If you don't know what you want to do next, take a look at the summary list where all the competencies are lined up. Read down and see which of the competencies stand out to you. Then check the list on the right to see which positions align with those competencies.

For example, maybe you look down the list and you see that the competency descriptions for Acquisitions and Fiscal Operations sound interesting to you. In that case, they both apply to Materials Selector. That might be an approach to take.

Additionally, as I mentioned before, in some libraries you may need to combine various position profiles together to align with the actual job description at your library. So in this case, maybe Leadership and Contracts and Negotiation also sound interesting to you. Those apply to Management and Administration. So you may want to aim yourself at a library whose management positions also select materials for the collection.

And remember, just because there might be a competency you either meet or want to meet that doesn't align with your position, doesn't mean you can't use that skill. These are just a baseline for the positions and not necessarily the end goal of each position.

So to give an example, my goal is to work in genealogy and local history when I finish my degree in May. So I'll be covering this example from that perspective. But if you're interested in either adult, children's, digital media, or teen services, you can also follow this same format since the competencies for all of these positions are the same.

For each of these positions, the competencies all include the same as the circulation competencies do. But it also adds in the Collection Development, Programming, Reader's Advisory, and Reference competencies as well.

As I mentioned before, the competencies might also adapt even though the competencies might stay the same. So while I'm likely still going to be explaining policies and maybe helping patrons on the computer, my instruction duties are likely going to shift to also include teaching some classes and having more dedicated one on one instruction sessions than previously before. These positions all possibly increase or adapt the kind of instruction you'd be doing with patrons over a circulation position.

So preparing for my next position after circulation doesn't seem so hard. There's only a few more competencies I need to gain experience in. But what happens a few more years down the road when I'm ready to move into a management position?

As you can see, management has a lot of extra competencies over the core competencies. You're adding higher level skills that are required for this level of work. But it's not just these seven competencies on this slide.

But also these seven competencies as well. This shows the level of work required to move from what's required at the base level of library work, to circulation, then a reference position, then to management. There is an evolution of position over time, and the competencies that go along with that. But you'll also see here that there's nothing in these competencies that deals with the competencies we've had before. These are 14 new competencies that we haven't been exposed to in a previous position. Hitting this point takes dedication.

Remember how I said that not every competency you have experience in or are interested in will apply to every position? That's still true. But what you also can remember is, that those competencies you're interested in, or are gaining experience in outside of your position, may come in handy for the next step.

So as long as I'm meeting the goals of my genealogy position, maybe I'm also working with a volunteer, doing grant writing for new projects, and maintaining the local history collection with new items and revising old records. These skills that I'm gaining aren't wasted, in fact they're preparing me for the eventual step down the road into a management position. Even if I don't go for a management position, those skills are still valuable to have and helpful in my career to have.

A couple last notes on how to evaluate your position. As you're looking over these, identify your weak spots. For me and my future position, reader's advisory is definitely the weak spot for me. I don't spend a lot of time reading or keeping up with book culture, so I don't usually know what to recommend if someone wants something similar. I know there are tools to use, but I don't have much experience with them and haven't had the chance to really dig into them. Once school is done for me, that's the next step in my planning.

Additionally, take classes, workshops, and webinars to fill in some of these holes. While in school I made sure to take a workshop on library instruction because I knew this was a part of my future career. I wanted to make sure I had those skills lined up and had at least a baseline understanding of them, even if I don't have the practical knowledge to back them up yet. It's the first step in preparing to meet the competency even if I haven't gained a lot of experience in it yet.

Any more questions at the point?

A couple last notes on how to evaluate your position. As you're looking over these, identify your weak spots. For me and my future position, reader's advisory is definitely the weak spot for me. I don't spend a lot of time reading or keeping up with book culture, so I don't usually know what to recommend if someone wants something similar. I know there are tools to use, but I don't have much experience with them and haven't had the chance to really dig into them. Once school is done for me, that's the next step in my planning.

Additionally, take classes, workshops, and webinars to fill in some of these holes. While in school I made sure to take a workshop on library instruction because I knew this was a part of my future career. I wanted to make sure I had those skills lined up and had at least a baseline understanding of them, even if I don't have the practical knowledge to back them up yet. It's the first step in preparing to meet the competency even if I haven't gained a lot of experience in it yet.

Any more questions at the point?

When you're preparing a resume, make sure you're actively doing as much of the work involved as you can. It's one thing to say you had a class on something or you read a book, but to be able to say you've done the work will lead to better results.

For my next position, one aspect is collection development. One of the projects I've taken on at my library is creating our lending board game collection. Over the last year I've managed to add several games ot our collection, and evaluate several of them. This collection has given me the opportunity to gain experience to prepare myself for meeting the Collection Development competency.

Maybe however there's not room in your budget to create a new collection. Ask your supervisor if you can help shadow them while they work on the collection. Tell them you want to gain experience with Collection Development and are looking for ways to gain experience in this area.

If you're considering or are going to library school for your MLIS, plan the work you'll take. Know what you want to do, and tailor your education to provide the skills you're looking for. There's not enough credits available to you at Kent to be able to take every class you want, so you'll need to plan wisely for what you'll end up taking.

Likewise, every program has a competency attached to it. You can see it in the online version of the program guide for this conference, but it unfortunately didn't make it into the printed copy. This a recent adjustment, and that will change in all future programming materials for OLC. There's a shorthand code to them, but if you know you need experience with Leadership or Patron Instruction, it might be worth evaluating which programs to attend based on which competencies it applies to.

As a note, we only ask for one competency when submitting a program. Sometimes these apply to multiple competencies. Use your judgment with this and if a program description sounds like it will apply to a certain competency even if it doesn't list that, if you feel it applies for a competency you're trying to work on, it's safe to go with that as well.

You probably have opinionated coworkers. Use them to your advantage. Give them a copy of the competencies from your current position and your desired one and ask them for their opinion on how you're doing on both levels. Do they think you're meeting your goals and are prepared for a future position?

If not your coworkers, you should ask your supervisor. If you already have an annual review use that as an opportunity to talk about these. If you don't, find the time to meet with them anyway. Use this as a time to both introduce the competencies to your supervisor if they don't know about them, and have them evaluate you on your position based on how well you meet the competencies.

It can also be helpful to talk to your supervisor. If they know the competencies you're trying to work on they might be able to help find you ways to work on those competencies either with special projects, shadowing other departments, or setting aside time for you to attend workshops.

Some of the competencies like Fundraising might be hard to get experience in during your regular work routine. In that case, look for places you can volunteer. Likely you have a Friends group at your library that needs help, or a local charity or organization looking for assistance. If you let them know you're looking to work in a certain area they might be able to help you out by getting you experience in the areas you're looking for in exchange for free labor.

One extra area you can use to potentially give yourself an edge is certification. This is something offered by OLC to prove your willingness to seek out continuing education and improve yourself with new skills.

By being able to put you're certified on a resume, it shows a potential employer that you're willing to go the extra mile and help improve the standards of your library and its employees by learning new skills and bringing them back to integrate into your library.

Like the competencies, the Library Education Committee oversees certification as well. We sought to develop certification to form a uniform standard for librarianship in Ohio, and to publicly recognize individuals who meet these standards.

It doesn't take much to join. There's a small fee associated with either, but it's not much to handle, and your library may cover the costs if you ask them. There are basic requirements that you have to work in a library for 2 years, and have a high school diploma for library staff and an MLIS for librarian. In addition, library staff need to have 10 credit hours of continuing education in the last two years. Today in fact counts for 6 hours , so if you attended this event last year as well you're set to go. You then apply, and you get a certificate in the mail along with a lapel pin that say you're certified.

You then have to renew every 5 years, and for library staff you need 50 hours for library staff and 75 for librarian to renew.

The last thing I have to share is the option to work with professional organizations like OLC. There are a large amount of groups within OLC alone that look for people to help. Whether it's an elected or appointed position, if you're interested in working with the OLC get in contact with a member of a committee, division, or chapter and express your interest.

I know the committee I'm on is looking for more non-librarians to get involved and possibly have several openings coming up at the end of the year. If you're interested in learning more, feel free to get in touch.