American Library Association

American Library Association's Public Programs Office will use a planning grant to identify and address gaps in equipping library professionals with the education and skills needed to build and execute community-responsive public programming in libraries. Building off of the IMLS-funded National Impact of Library Public Programs Assessment (NILPPA), the project team hopes to further illuminate and address gaps in programming training in order to build a library workforce that can better support the public. This process will include: 1. a landscape review of programming course syllabi currently being taught in MLIS programs and in professional development nationwide; 2. facilitated conversations between 12 library field advisors that include programming librarians, MLIS programming course instructors, and continuing education content providers from the field to discuss strengths, weaknesses, gaps, and opportunities in current offerings; 3. consideration of further alignment with the NILPPA Core Library Programming Competencies; and 4. publication of recommendations to create programming-specific curriculum for the library field.