At a Glance
Englewood Public Library
Englewood, CO
Institution Type:
Public Libraries
Related Products:
Learn with NoveList Plus
Overview
In 1858, gold was discovered along Little Dry Creek in Arapahoe County, Colorado. That discovery drew prospectors and eventually led to the founding of Englewood, Colorado. The city sits on the southernmost edge of the metro area of Denver, Colorado, and is now home to about 35,000 people who all rely on the Englewood Public Library for their library service.
Carrie Watson is the Library Operations Manager for the library. She and her coworkers spend each day serving a diverse community of readers inside the library’s one branch, located in the former Cinderella City Mall. The Mall was the largest mall west of the Mississippi River and one of the largest in the world when it opened in 1968.
“We have patrons all around, from Denver proper, Littleton, Sheridan, lots of the surrounding communities,” explains Carrie. “Because of that, we serve a very diverse population. We do see a lot of the urban challenges that Denver has as well. We serve as a kind of primary resource connection point for a lot of folks who are just experiencing a diversity of needs.”
Staff training is an ongoing challenge
Like many libraries, Englewood Public Library is part of a small city, with a budget to match. They have less than 30 staff members, and about half of those are part-timers. The library hires staff from the customer service sector, and while those staff members have excellent skills in serving the community, they often have no experience working in a library. It’s up to Carrie and other managers to help those new staff members build the skills they need, like working with readers and promoting the library, to do their work capably and confidently. That’s where a subscription to Learn with Novelist is a great tool.
“It's been perfect for our needs when it comes to readers' advisory specifically. While staff might be really good at customer service, they might not have the confidence to know what sorts of books exist. When they have these trainings available through Learn with NoveList, it can really help build that confidence.”
“It's been perfect for our needs when it comes to readers' advisory specifically. While staff might be really good at customer service, they might not have the confidence to know what sorts of books exist. When they have these trainings available through Learn with NoveList, it can really help build that confidence.”
“From the courses, they know what resources exist to help them navigate things. We’ve used the course materials to create book lists and physical displays and help us think of new ways to categorize books on a display. And I think that that has been super helpful for us.”
Making learning a team event
Carrie says different teams at Englewood Public Library take different approaches to encourage and motivate staff members to take courses. Carrie’s team likes to work together and discuss what they’ve discovered in Learn with NoveList courses.
“I've assigned one class per month for my team to take,” explains Carrie. “For example, we all took Be Genre Confident: How to Recommend Books in the Eight Most Challenging Genres at the same time. It was part of the staff’s assigned duties, during their off desk or project time to view the class.”
“Then, I created a message board for the team with a series of discussion questions. I told my team that by the end of the month, I want everybody to have watched the course and to have interacted in some way on the board. We ask ourselves, ‘What did you take away that was helpful? What did you learn that we could incorporate?’”
Course content that’s helpful for all levels of experience
Carrie’s team has been using Learn with NoveList for staff training for nearly a year. And, she says, certain courses struck a chord with her coworkers.
“Everybody's favorite course was Everyone Can Recommend Books: Quick Tips for Creating Positive Reader Experiences at Your Library,” remembers Carrie. “Feeling confident at readers' advisory on the desk is really important to folks. When somebody walks up and says, ‘Hey, I want a book about vampires,’ or ‘I want a book about sci-fi,’ I think that that course gives everybody just a really quick confidence.”
“Be Genre Confident was everybody's next favorite. Staff immediately incorporated what they learned. I have one staff member who primarily works with our displays in the library. She used the cheat sheets from the course to make online lists inside of our catalog page!”
In February, Carrie’s team tackled the two newest courses on the platform, How to Reach Gen Z Members of Your Community and How to Reach Millennial Members of Your Community. Carrie says the team expressed curiosity and excitement about the content of these courses, and that led to her decision to assign them.
Learning is fun with Learn with NoveList
The team at Learn with NoveList works to make each course as interesting as possible. Some courses include activities, quizzes, and choose-your-own-adventure-style tasks. Carrie says her staff like that they can choose courses based not only on topics, but on the length and type of course.
“There are things you can read, there's things you can flip through,” explains Carrie. “There are videos, some short, some long, so you kind of get to look at the class and decide how you want to engage with it on your time. You may see a recorded webinar you want to watch, and you know you'll need to set aside a longer period when you're sitting off desk."
"Other courses are more passive in the sense that you can kind of do it on your own time. You can keep it open while you're on the desk, and if there's a lull in service, you can flip through and read and engage it in a different way. It has a great blend of just content delivery.”
Even though Carrie has more than five years of experience working at the library, she still finds the courses on working with readers to be helpful. For example, like many library staff, she finds it intimidating to recommend books in genres that are outside of her own reading experience. Be Genre Confident helped her overcome her fear of recommending books in genres she doesn’t personally enjoy.
“The course was valuable for me because I have my favorite genres that I know a lot more about, and so it's easy for me to pull from my own knowledge about what I read more primarily,” notes Carrie. “But reading more about the distinction between sci-fi and fantasy was really helpful for me because I didn't realize the kind of nuanced differences between some of these genres or subgenres."
"It helped me listen to what patrons say. And it’s helped me create better searches for books about genres that I might not be as familiar with.”
"It helped me listen to what patrons say. And it’s helped me create better searches for books about genres that I might not be as familiar with.”