with UNESCO and Mosul University to deliver a programme of staff training and capacity building.


A roundtable stakeholder meeting was held in June 2024 with the Ulster Univer- sity Project Team, staff from the Project Team at the UNESCO Iraq Office, and the Library Director from Mosul Library. This meeting provided the space for all stake- holders to explore and arrive at an agreed understanding of the scope, parameters, and priorities for the project. Following on from this, further meetings were held with senior staff from Mosul University and the UNECSO Iraq Office. The stakeholders identified the enhancement of the technical and professional skills of the library staff and building the resilience of the team at Mosul as the most pressing priority to deliver a foundation for ensuring long-term insti- tutional resilience. This is reflected in the project priorities:


l To critically examine the training needs of the library staff team at Mosul University;


l to develop and deliver a programme of training to support these needs;


l to evaluate the training programme;


l to conduct a SWOT analysis of the Mosul University Library context to sup- port the identification of priorities and a strategy to support forward planning.


Training needs As a first step, a Training Needs Analysis survey was undertaken to get a better understanding of staff training needs. This was made available in both English and Arabic to the library staff team at Mosul. Ninety seven percent of survey respond- ents indicated that they would welcome the opportunity to participate in training to further develop their skills and knowledge base. There was a high level of awareness of the need for training and willingness to engage with the process.


June-July 2026


Central Library, University of Mosul.


The training priorities that emerged from the staff survey can can be summarised as follows:


The use of digital technologies to enhance service provision;


Becoming a more user centred library service;


Policy development to guide services and operations;


Development of library guides;


Cataloguing Collections and use of an LMS Partnership working; Teaching Digital and Information Literacy


Strategic planning and the evaluation of services.


Ulster University’s programme of


capacity building and staff training In response to the expressed need, an online training programme was created and deliv- ered between August and September 2024. Knowledge sharing was a key feature of the training programme. Whilst the initial training was delivered to key participants, it was intended that the knowledge and expertise acquired during the project would be cascaded across the wider staff team at Mosul and disseminated through- out the library to maximise the learning. The training comprised six modules:


l Library values, structures, and roles


l training and facilitation skills l collections management l digitisation and managing E-Collections l evaluating library services


l building partnerships, networks, and outreach.


Through synchronous learning, selected library staff in Iraq were able to engage with case studies, online discussions and partici- pate in Q&A sessions during the live training sessions. Each training module included a web-based online folder which provided access to additional learning resources including a slide deck and short video presentation(s). These reusable learning objects form part of the Open Access training package.


The online training programme was further developed and enhanced with the delivery of an in-person training pro- gramme for selected staff from the library at Mosul during a week-long visit to Ulster University from 15th to 21st October 2024. An additional five training modules were delivered on site by library staff and cov- ered the following topics:


l Meeting the needs of diverse library users;


l teaching information skills and informa- tion literacy;


l developing library resources to support users – Libguides;


INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL 35


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