Participation in this program was mandatory for five librarians with teaching responsibilities, including the Associate University Librarian & Director of Public Services, but was open to all library staff interested in attending. Each of the five teaching librarians were required to present on at least one topic, with some librarians presenting up to four topics. Topics for presentations included the ACRL Framework for Information Literacy for Higher Education, Legal Research, PowerPoint Best Practices, LibGuides, Instructional Design, and Special Collections & Archives. Presentations occurred once a week and lasted about one hour. While the presentations typically occurred every Tuesday at 10am over the twelve weeks, the small size of the program allowed for some flexibility with scheduling in the event of previously scheduled meetings, vacation time, or other unavoidable conflicts. The Training the Trainer Program was created in-house, therefore there was no financial cost. Because it was held over the summer, it did not interfere with teaching responsibilities and rarely interfered with reference desk coverage.
An anonymous survey at the end of the program demonstrated that while the program was considered to be too time-consuming, the participants greatly enjoyed and valued the opportunity to improve their knowledge of library trends, teaching best practices, and useful software and technology tools for reference and teaching. Participants also appreciated the time to collaborate and exchange ideas with their colleagues. Many of the topics covered during the Training the Trainer Program were adopted by the teaching librarians in their information literacy instruction afterwards during the fall semester. FDU’s Florham Campus Library plans to hold this program again in the summer of 2020 during a more manageable six-week period.
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