Cathy Ashby's Learning Activities for FY14

Sorry to be such a neglectful blogger.  Many thanks to WMRL for supporting our learning activities throughout the year!

Among the activities that I attended this year:

FMLA Medical Certification Abuses:  Legal Do’s and Don’ts

• October 24, 2013 
• Presented by the Progressive Executive Education Institute

The webinar covered employee family leave requests and notice requirements, employee medical certifications; when and how often to request new certification and re-certifications; dealing with medical providers legal information requests; and FMLA leave recordkeeping.  

The webinar had a large audience which made it hard to interact with the presenter when we had questions.  The webinar was held in the afternoon and we had the usual slow connection problems.  

I learned a lot about the newer record-keeping requirements.  

PLA 2014 Virtual Conference 

• February 13-14, 2014
• PLA Conference online

The seminars included:

• Do You Know Where Your Librarian Is? Building Relationships outside the Building  
• ABC – Always Be Circulating: How Public Libraries Meet Demand and Increase Use 
• Developing a Staff Competency Program That Works!  
• The Most Dangerous Idea of All: Change from the Bottom Up 
• Your Next Book is on Facebook: Using Social Media in Readers’ Advisory 
• Technology’s Future at Public Libraries: Staying Relevant in the Digital Age 
• Cheap and Easy: An Introduction to Passive Programming 
• Black Belt Librarians: How to Effectively and Safely Inform Patrons of Library Rules 
• Meeting Public Service Expectations by Breaking the Service Model Who We Are, What We Do, and Why it Matters: Establishing Our Distinctive Sense of Purpose

The programs were too numerous to review individually.  As a group they were almost overwhelming in a two day period.  The conference left me with a range of great ideas to try, but some of the content seemed stale. I learned that passive programming is a thing. A thing that we have been doing all along without realizing we were doing it. I learned new strategies for effectively informing patrons of the library’s rules.  

I also attended the MLA/DLA conference in May 2014.  I felt that the workshop on Dealing with Mental Illness was especially useful.