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There was an opportunity to create and pilot a series of webinars for healthcare staff working in NHS South and we both volunteered.
Professional Development
Developing an online training programme for NHS library staff
N this month’s column, Natalie Gabe and Chloe George discuss how they got involved in a CPD project for NHS libraries which meant learning new software, exploring training analysis, and working collaboratively.
How did you get involved in this project?
Early in 2018, we were both asked to join the Library and Knowledge Services (LKS) Engagement Group South. Our remit was to represent and engage with all library staff in the region to understand and represent their views about local delivery of Knowledge for Health (
https://bit.ly/2MHzJXP).
There was an opportunity to create and pilot a series of webinars for healthcare staff working in NHS South and we both volunteered. We collaborated with the CPD reference group to create a community of practice to share expertise and knowledge across the region “virtually”.
The plan was to run two webinar sessions per topic for both professional and para-professional staff , giving them the opportunity to keep up-to-date with regional knowledge, as well as communicating and sharing ideas with peers. The Engagement Group suggested topics and speakers for the initial months of this project, which made it easier for us.
So how did you get started? We hadn’t spoken before we joined the group, let alone worked together. We soon discovered that although we had participated in webinars, neither of us had facilitated a session before. We needed training and also a willing presenter for the fi rst sessions. Calling on regional expertise, we learnt how to use WebEx and how
September 2018
to organise an online training event. We decided that we should have the same skill set, but that Chloe would run the Library Assistant webinars, and Nat the Librarian ones, however, when one is in charge of a webinar, the other is lurking in the background in case any user or technical issues arise.
What was most challenging? Being responsible for the smooth running of the webinars was challenging; there is always the worry of technical problems or ensuring the conversation fl ows seamlessly. Having two of us helped as we always had each other for support. The project has been a learning curve and we are using our experiences to develop a trouble-shooting toolkit for creating webinars. We started off feeling apprehensive, but the fi rst webinar soon settled our nerves. In fact we realised that sometimes our guest speakers are more nervous than we are! One of our sessions accidentally got advertised nationally (we were overzealous in our emails to mailing lists) but we took this as an opportunity to gauge national interest, which there was a lot of. We were encouraged by this and realised that our target audience could be expanded to library staff across the country.
What has been most rewarding? Getting to work together has been rewarding and fun; it just felt so easy working alongside and supporting each other. We have also found it encouraging having support and advice from both our Library Managers and the Engagement Group. We have enjoyed the opportunity to work alongside many regional colleagues both as attendees and presenters of our sessions. The project has enabled us to bring people together and involving
Natalie Gabe (
Natalie.Gabe@southernhealth.
nhs.uk) is Knowledge Specialist, Hampshire Healthcare Library Service.
INSIGHT
Chloe George (
chloe.george@
nhs.net) is Senior Library Assistant, Gloucestershire Hospitals NHS Trust.
them has been fantastic. The fact that the webinars are live gives us a buzz, not quite a radio show, but it feels great doing them.
What are your plans? We’ve hosted fi ve sessions so far and hope to gain feedback from library staff to plan our next set of webinars. In the future, we want to encourage volunteers to join us in hosting the webinars and, once the toolkit has been developed, we would like to expand the project to another part of the country. We would love to pilot this project elsewhere or to hear whether any other library sector is doing something similar.
If you would like to fi nd out more about our webinar project, share similar experiences of setting up webinars or get involved please contact us. IP
INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 49
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