Facilitating a workshop on library cadetship and graduate programs

On Friday the 16th of September I helped to give a workshop on library cadetship and graduate programs with staff members from the State Library of Western Australia: Molly Tebo and Theresa Archer who are currently taking part in the graduate program at the SLWA.

My presentation on the library cadetship program at the University of Melbourne went well and I had a few inquiries about the cadetship program, both from someone planning to redesign their institution’s graduate program and from a prospective applicant. Please email me if you would like a copy of my PowerPoint slides.

It was also interesting to learn about the graduate program at the SLWA:

• It is a one year program and so far they have had three rounds of graduates in 2008, 2009 and 2011.
• Each graduate is assigned a mentor and they aim to match the graduate with someone who will challenge them and give them honest feedback, as well as good advice.
• Mentors are chosen so that they are not on the direct reporting line for the graduate, but are in senior positions in the library (so it can be difficult to find an appropriate mentor).
• There is a graduate program committee and placement supervisors are invited to the committee meetings in the lead up to and during the placements.
• The graduates write a blog together which is accessible to library staff members:
• They interview library staff members about their roles and other library staff members have found these posts useful and interesting.

After the presentations, we ran a brainstorming activity. I had prepared a series of questions on small pieces of paper (that looked like post-it notes):

The participants read the questions and then wrote their ideas for designing a successful cadetship or graduate program on post-it notes, which we stuck on the sheets of paper on the wall, clustered in groups:

Afterwards Molly and Theresa collated all the responses from the brainstorm, and I have emailed these to Sandra Woods.

I hope that some of the feedback that has been gathered and the information on the graduate program at the SLWA may be useful in planning future rounds of the library cadetship program at the University of Melbourne.

Overall it was a fantastic experience that has inspired me to become involved in either presenting or helping to organise future conferences!