Library Management Training

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

• Understand different management styles and identify the kind of manager you want to be.
• Use cultural competency in your management techniques.
• Build a culture of trust and belonging with your staff.
• Run efficient and effective meetings.
• Gain communication skills to lead your team through change.
• Give difficult and constructive feedback.
• Manage conflicts and difficult conversations with confidence.
• Identify causes of burnout for yourself and your staff.
• Advocate for your team within your sphere of influence.
• Manage your team through crises.
• Create career goals for yourself and advocate for your own professional development.
• Use data literacy skills to make informed decisions.

This course is especially helpful for:

• New and emerging managers who are responsible for staff but have not had formal management training
• Department heads, branch managers, and team leads overseeing staff performance, communication, and daily operations
• Library leaders who want more consistent management practices across teams and locations
• Managers responsible for handling feedback, conflict, burnout, and staff development
• Library workers preparing to step into a management role and wanting a clearer foundation before they do

If that sounds like your role, you will likely recognize the situations this course addresses.

If you are someone who:

• Feels like you are figuring out management as you go and want a clearer approach
• Wants to handle feedback, difficult conversations, and conflict more directly and effectively
• Has had situations where expectations felt clear to you but not to your staff
• Is trying to support staff through burnout, change, or resistance without making things worse
• Wants practical tools you can actually use in meetings, reviews, and day-to-day management

This course was built for that kind of real-world management work.

ALL THE DETAILS

Library management can feel like a weird job to land in. You are suddenly responsible for staff, communication, conflict, feedback, meetings, burnout, and decisions that affect other people’s work lives, but most managers were never actually taught how to do those things well. This course is built for that gap.

This live and self-paced online course gives you practical management training grounded in real library work. Across live sessions, facilitated discussion, and asynchronous workshop activities, you will build skills in people management, equity-centered leadership, difficult conversations, feedback, conflict resolution, crisis management, burnout, and data-informed decision making. The spring accelerated option moves through the material more quickly, while the fall option spreads the work over a longer timeline. Both formats cover the same core management topics and lead to the same certificate.

SESSIONS AND PRICING

This course is offered in two formats, a 2-week accelerated version in the spring, and our traditional 8-week version in the fall. Choose the schedule and pace that works best for you.

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 hybrid live and self-paced online course includes live sessions with guest speaker presentations, facilitated discussion and Q&A, asynchronous project-based workshop assignments, peer-to-peer sharing through discussion forums, and an online classroom that holds all course content.

All live sessions are recorded and remain available for six months after the course ends. The asynchronous work is designed to be completed over the duration of the live sessions, but you will have six months of access to work at your own pace.

EXPECTED TIME COMMITMENT

If you attend or watch the recordings of all live sessions and complete the workshop activities, you will spend approximately 20 hours on the 2-week accelerated course or 32 hours on the standard 8-week course. The same material is covered in both versions.

COURSE ACCESS

All live sessions are recorded and available for six months following the end of the course. The online classroom and workshop materials also remain accessible for six months after the course ends.

CREDIT & CERTIFICATE

After completing the accelerated 2-week course, you will earn 20 professional development credit hours. You will earn 32 credits for the standard 8-week course. Participants in either series will receive a Library Journal Management Training Certificate, which will be emailed to you.

ACCESSIBILITY

All live guest speaker sessions feature auto-captioning and are available on demand after the initial broadcast. 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.