Equity-Centered Library Leadership

AFTER COMPLETING THIS COURSE, YOU'LL BE ABLE TO:

• Analyze where you are on your DEI leadership journey and plan for next steps
• Conduct an equity assessment on your organization
• Begin to map out an equity-centered strategic plan for your organization
• Lead organizational change through iterative and data-driven processes
• Revise your HR practices to match DEI best practices
• Lead with emotional intelligence and vulnerability
• Manage staff with empathetic and trauma-informed practices

THIS COURSE CONSISTS OF 6 ON-DEMAND MODULES:

Module 1: Intersectional Leadership: Building an Inclusive and Equitable Workplace Culture 

How can your leadership style better serve and support LGBTQIA+ and BIPOC staff? Learn how to create a workplace culture that invites all employees to feel respected and included. You will learn the characteristics of harmful work cultures and tangible ways to avoid them, as well as ideas for how to make positive changes in your library.

Module 2: Equity-Centered Recruiting, Hiring, Onboarding, and Retention Best Practices 

Practicing equity-centered leadership extends into how we recruit, welcome, and provide ongoing support structures for our library staff. In this module, you'll reflect upon and learn some tangible strategies for identifying how to ground equity in your hiring, onboarding, and retention practices.

Module 3: Radical Empathy and Servant Leadership: Strategies for People Management 

So you’ve implemented equity-centered recruiting and hiring practices, but how do you keep that same energy with your hired staff? This module will lay the foundation for empathy-centered and servant leadership practices to help you support your direct reports holistically. You’ll learn how to have difficult feedback conversations, manage conflict, ensure staff success without micromanaging, and how to differentiate staff support and encourage wellness.

Module 4: Where Am I? Self-Assessment as a Tool for Equity-Centered Leadership 

Ongoing, lifelong learning is necessary for good DEI work, and we don’t all start in the same place. Knowing where you are on your DEI leadership journey is imperative to making good progress toward your goals, but self-assessment can be hard. This module will help you assess your leadership skills honestly, understand what changes need to happen, and know exactly what your next steps should be to continue growing.

Module 5: Applying Equity Practices: Equity Impact Analysis Tools and Organizational Assessment

Now that you have an understanding of where you are personally on your equity-centered leadership journey, it’s time to consider your organization at large. This module will teach you the ins and outs of DEI organizational assessments so that you can prioritize the most urgent areas of growth. You will learn how to apply an Equity Impact Analysis tool to ensure you’re able to assess your current and future organizational policies, procedures, and practices through a data-driven lens.

Module 6: Strategic Planning and Leading Organizational Change

This module will push you to think big when it comes to how you imagine equity-centered leadership in your organization. You’ll learn how to craft your ideas into a strategic plan that maps out tangible ways to lead organizational change. This module will help you play with what’s possible and then equip you with the tools to bring your imagination to life.

WHO SHOULD TAKE THIS COURSE

This course is designed for current and aspiring library leaders.

SESSIONS AND PRICING

Early bird pricing ends one month before the session deadline. Course materials unlock on the session deadline date.

GROUP OPTIONS

Training a team? Choose the setup that matches how you want to plan and pay :

Group course enrollment: Enroll 3+ staff in this course and save.

Bulk course credits: Prepay once, get the highest per-seat discount on every course, and assign seats later.

Unlimited annual licensing: System-wide access for a year with no per-course approvals.

Request Discounted Group Pricing

Questions? Email groupsales@libraryjournal.com.

COURSE FORMAT

This is a fully self-paced, asynchronous online course consisting of 5 modules. Each module includes video instruction, slides, readings, and reflective exercises designed to connect concepts directly to your daily work. You will have access to optional office hours on December 8, 2026.

EXPECTED TIME COMMITMENT

Each module is designed to take approximately 3 hours to complete, for a total of 15 professional development hours. You may move through the course at your own pace and on your own schedule.

ALL THE DETAILS

Learn to develop whole-person, empathy-centered leadership skills to foster and maintain an inclusive work environment through wellbeing, evaluation, and accountability practices. We will discuss how to assess your current leadership style and organization, plan and prepare for organizational change, and follow equity best practices for recruiting and hiring. You will leave with the skills to build a library that centers belonging, prioritizes empathy, and leads with vulnerability and compassion.

ON-DEMAND ACCESS

You will have access to all course materials for six months from the material unlock date.

CERTIFICATE OF COMPLETION

Complete all modules to earn 15 professional development credit hours and a Library Journal certificate of completion. Certificates are emailed upon completion.

ACCESSIBILITY

All video recordings feature auto-captioning. If you require accommodations, please email course-support@libraryjournal.com upon registration and we will make our best efforts to support your needs.

SUPPORT

For technical or course-related support, please contact course-support@libraryjournal.com.