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This program provided information and help for technical services librarians as speakers provided a clear description of core competencies, why they are important, and how they can be used. Attendees were referred to the work of the Online Bibliographic Services SIS Ad Hoc Committee, whose results are available at . The final section of the program described an ambitious and interesting training program at a large academic (non-law) library. The first step of this training program was establishing core competencies for staff who had to learn a new library system.

Phyllis Post, chair of the Ad Hoc Committee, stated that core competencies are being used in non-library fields as well as in libraries, and that some of the items in her bibliography on page 55 of the Educational Program Handout Materials referred to jobs outside of libraries. However, they help with understanding the history and uses of core competencies.

Core competencies are observable and demonstrable skill sets that contribute to the successful completion of a task or job. They differ from a job description, which describes the end result. Core competencies detail what an employee needs to know to achieve the end results.

There are different types of core competencies:

1. Behavioral or Personal Competencies, often called "soft skills", and most often included in upper level jobs. However, many are required to be successful in library support positions, e.g. "maintains courteous manner when dealing with difficult patrons" for circulation staff.
2. Organizational Competencies, or "professional competencies" describe knowledge needed by an organization to succeed in its work. Examples include "understands how legal information is organized" for a staff member who checks in serials, and "understands federal government documents depository rules" for a staff member working in the documents department of a law library.
3. Work-based or Occupational Competencies, or "hard skills" which are usually more rigidly defined. An example is "creates or updates local records to indicate location of issues" for a staff member who checks in bindery shipments.

Phyllis also described the stages of implementation: identify jobs, collect information, brief employees, create training, and modify as needed. It is important that employees be included, so that they understand they are not being evaluated. Input from staff is also needed so that core competencies can be described in ways they relate to and understand.

Training is the most important, and often, the most popular outcome of establishing core competencies. Also, for evaluation, both supervisors and staff have a specific knowledge of what is expected. In the best outcome, staff will feel pride in recognizing how much they have mastered to accomplish their jobs. (I hope that an important outcome can be that administrators in the parent organization can understand the complexity of much of the work done by technical services staff.)

The work of the Ad Hoc Committee can be viewed at the URL given in the first paragraph. The committee based their work on functional areas rather than job titles, since job titles are not consistent from library to library. In job areas where libraries use different systems, e.g. inter-library loan services, and integrated library systems, descriptions of core competencies are generic. However, these can be expanded and tailored to specific libraries. Phyllis asked that librarians adapt these core competencies for their own libraries, then email her with suggestions (ppost@law.capital.edu).

The final section of the program described the core competencies and the resulting training program at the University of Missouri-Kansas City when all U. of M. campuses moved to a new, shared, automated system. The speaker, Kathleen Schweitzberger, in cooperation with the music librarian, developed a far-reaching training program that would enable all one hundred staff to help patrons with basic searching and use of the OPAC. The program also aimed to give all staff a broad but fairly detailed understanding of the working of the shared system.

I found this part of the program very interesting, but it provided more information on the details of the training program than help with core competencies. One unusual detail was that the small groups of eight to ten usually included both technical services and public services staff, and also included a mix of librarians and support staff from all levels. The training teams also included public services and technical services members. They used a high-tech electronic classroom to present a series of four weekly classes spread over a month to each group. The classes make good use of hands-on exercises, and trainees are given follow-up exercises to do. Kathleen emphasized the necessity of approaching administration for support, and keeping them informed.

Examples of the training tools used, including the core competencies on which they are built are at http://unofficial.umkc.edu/schweitzbergerk/AALL.htm. However, as of August 14th, this site was under construction.

The program suffered due to some Powerpoint problems. Also, one speaker was unable to attend. But the two speakers covered well with an interesting presentation that made a lively introduction to core competencies and the work of the Ad Hoc Committee.

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