Professional DevelopmentCARLI has partnered with *14 other library consortia to create the Professional Development Alliance. The PDA is a group of library consortia dedicated to sharing free, online professional development opportunities with other alliance members.
Sessions cover a broad array of topics of interest to library professionals. This cooperative initiative multiplies the number and variety of online professional development opportunities available to the member libraries of each participating consortium.
PDA offerings including registration information (converted into Central Time Zone) will be added to the CARLI events calendar and will also be announced to CARLI email lists. The CARLI calendar will direct participants to the host consortium to register; events will be held using the host's preferred delivery platform.
This initiative aligns closely with CARLI's stated strategic priority to "explore opportunities to collaborate with other states or academic library affiliated organizations". The PDA also provides a unique opportunity to enrich our awareness of the diversity of library staff across the nation, bringing us added perspectives and increasing our understanding of contexts beyond our own.
We want to hear from you! If you have a topic you would like to see as a continuing education program, send your idea to CARLI Support.
*Professional Development Alliance (PDA) participating consortia are:
- ASERL: Association of Southeastern Research Libraries
- Atla: American Theological Library Association
- BLC: Boston Library Consortium
- Colorado Alliance of Research Libraries
- CARLI: Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois
- FLVC: Florida Virtual Campus
- LIRN: Library Information & Resources Network
- LibraryLink NJ
- LOUIS: Louisiana Library Network
- Minitex: Consortia in Minnesota including North Dakota and South Dakota
- NC LIVE: North Carolina's statewide library cooperative
- PASCAL: Partnership Among South Carolina Academic Libraries
- SALS: Southern Adirondack Library System
- SCELC: Southern California Electric Library Consortium
- SEFLIN: Southeast Florida Library Information Network
Accessibility
For CARLI-hosted PDA programs, live captions and transcriptions are made available for all attendees within the Zoom meeting platform.
Video recordings of CARLI-hosted webinars include captions that have been generated by WhisperX, OpenAI's speech recognition system, then reviewed by CARLI staff.
Presenters wishing to share additional resources are asked to make documents, images, or websites accessible prior to sharing them.
Please contact CARLI Support if we can improve your access to PDA events and content.
Webinars
From Concept to Display: Creating Impactful Library Exhibitions
April 8, 2026
Melanie Emerson (School of the Art Institute of Chicago) and Leora Siegel (Chicago Botanic Garden, Lenhardt Library) draw on their experience across academic, museum, and research library contexts to illuminate the value of exhibitions as a core library function. They consider why exhibitions matter—how they activate collections, advance institutional missions, support teaching and research, and cultivate meaningful engagement with diverse audiences. From increasing the visibility of underrepresented materials to opening new entry points into collections, exhibitions provide dynamic opportunities to interpret, contextualize, and connect.
Resources:
Archives in Action: Empowering Student Workers and Community Volunteers
February 4, 2026
Highlighting specific projects at Bradley University and Illinois Wesleyan University, Liz Bloodworth, Ching Zedric, and Dr. Libby Tronnes share guidelines (and pitfalls) for incorporating volunteers and student workers into everyday operations in an archival environment. Home to tedious tasks and resume-building projects, archives and special collections are uniquely positioned to offer hands-on experience and experiential learning. The speakers also share tips for making this work meaningful and beneficial for everyone.
Resources:
Cultivating the Living Room of Campus: Lessons from Tredway Library’s Wellness Initiatives
January 28, 2026
Kaitlyn Goss-Peirce and Garrett Traylor share Tredway Library’s path to developing targeted wellness-related collections and programming centered on giving students resources and spaces to simply be, rather than be in an act of becoming, in response to expressed gaps in student support. These projects, ranging from the expansion of a leisure collection to include self-care materials to curating Lego sets for passive community programming and even to the present reimagining of a defunct computer lab into a wellness lounge, have each invited and engaged students throughout the development and realization processes. Learn the pros, cons, and advice regarding each of the projects undertaken so far.
Resources:
Introduction to Appraising Born-Digital Records
December 12, 2025
Danielle Taylor provided an introduction of the types of born-digital materials, an overview of the importance of preserving born-digital content, development of archival appraisal workflows, and an overview of various open-source tools to assist with archival appraisal tasks. She focused heavily on workflows and decision-making for approaching archival appraisal and provided an overview of resources for further consideration.
Resources:
Librarianship at a Crossroads: Using AI as a Catalyst for Cross-Campus Collaboration
November 13, 2025
Atticus Garrison introduces the fundamentals of AI and shares strategies for using it as a springboard to move beyond the traditional “one shot” instruction model. Drawing from real-world experience, Atticus shows how AI became an entry point for new collaborations with instructors and departments across campus.
Resources:
Developing an A.I. Chatbot for the Library: The Rebecca Crown Library Experience
November 11, 2025
Zach Claybaugh walks through the process of developing an AI chatbot as a tool for library patrons. Zach discusses the origin of the project, cross-departmental collaboration, student involvement, and AI anxiety. By the end of the presentation, participants will have an understanding of some of the challenges of developing an AI chatbot, as well as finding ways to address the concerns of library personnel and students who are anxious about the impact of AI technology.
Resources:
Collaborating with Stakeholders to Support Underserved Communities with Reparative Collections: Benefits, Challenges, and Emerging Best Practices
November 5, 2025
Dr. Anne Marie Hamilton-Brehm, Juniper Oxford, and Dr. Pamela Smoot at Southern Illinois University Carbondale discuss how opportunities to develop reparative archival collections emerged and have been pursued in collaboration with underserved Black and LGBTQ+ communities in the southern Illinois region. The panel will reflect on expected and unexpected benefits and challenges of coordinating initiatives and building collections with internal and external partners and stakeholders and will offer thoughts on best practices based on their experiences.
Resources:
Education Justice Project's Reentry Guides
November 3, 2025
The Reentry Resource Program at the Education Justice Project (EJP) publishes practical guides for people returning home from prison and for those being deported from the US. These roughly 200-page guides, published in English and Spanish, offer empowering information and resources for individuals going through often-traumatic transitions. Lee Ragsdale and Chad Rand discuss these resources, how to access them, anticipated updates, and more. In addition, Lee and Chad will talk about EJP’s Reentry Guide Project through which the organization provides a year of technical and financial assistance to organizations to create their own reentry guides.
Resources:
-
- Recording
- Mapping Your Future: A Guide to Successful Reentry, Illinois 2025 is THE reentry guide for incarcerated people in the state.
- A New Path: A Guide to the Challenges and Opportunities After Deportation is a guide for people who live in the United States with the threat of detention and deportation.
Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries
October 1, 2025
Dr. Kate McDowell introduces key ideas from her book Critical Data Storytelling for Libraries designed to help all library workers—whether data experts or story experts—craft ethical, evidence-based narratives for advocacy and impact.
Resources:
ADA Title II Toolkit for Libraries
Session 1: Accessible Documents and Emails
September 16, 2025
Mark McCarthy shares how to create and remediate documents in MS Word, PDF, and emails to meet the latest accessibility standards.
Resources:
Session 2: Accessible Presentation Slides
September 25, 2025
Mark McCarthy shares accessibility barriers in common presentation formats. He also shares tips to build accessible presentation slides and remediate existing ones to meet the latest accessibility standards.
Resources:
Session 3: Website Accessibility
September 30, 2025
Tim Offenstein shares how to quickly spot accessibility issues on your website; highlighting easy techniques and tools that will help you identify and fix things to make your site accessible and user-friendly for all audiences.
Resources:
Session 4: Accessible Videos and Audio
November 19, 2025
Ann Fredricksen shares ways in which libraries can start thinking about tackling the A/V material on their websites, strategies for working with smaller vendors to improve the accessibility of their content, and emerging AI tools that can be utilized to reduce the workload.
Resources:
Digitization Projects Showcase 1
July 16, 2025
During this webinar, Stephanie Gowler and Nicole Finzer, Northwestern University Libraries, presented on their digitization project "Using Multispectral Imaging to Augment Digitized West African Manuscripts" and Christina Miranda, University of Chicago Library, presented on “Collaborative Preservation at the Crossroads of Science and History: Digitizing the Barnard Atlas.”
Resources:
Digitization Projects Showcase 2
July 23, 2025
During this webinar, Kelsey Wise and Matthew Deihl, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, present on their digitization project “Picturing Lincoln: Digitizing a Physical Collection at the ALPLM” and Abigail Mann, Liz Bloodworth, and Dagan Turcotte-Cutkomp, Illinois Wesleyan University, present on “Building a 3D Archival Collection: Experiential Student Learning with the Curtis Trout Collection.”
Resources:
Building Digital Archives with Minimal Staffing
May 14-15, 2025
This two-day program included sessions on equipment recommendations, digitization workflows, metadata, and platforms and tools for managing, accessing, and working with digitized or born digital materials. During the webinar, presenters discussed advocating for resources, project planning, and documentation, along with demonstrations.
AI Competencies for Library Workers
May 1, 2025
At the start of his term in June 2024, ACRL President Leo Lo established a task force to develop comprehensive AI competencies for library workers, aligning with the evolving needs of academic libraries. In this webinar, Dr. Lo and the co-chairs of the task force— Keven Jeffery and Jason Coleman—present the most recent draft of the competencies, describe the processes used to create them, and discuss how they can be applied by library administrators, educators, faculty, and staff to help us and our patrons adapt to new ways of creating, consuming, analyzing, and describing information.
AI Competencies for Academic Library Workers
Snakes in the Library! Book Snakes and Other Preservation-Related Crafts for Library Outreach
April 9, 2025
Gabriel Hammer, Newberry Library along with Shelby Strommer and Arthur Hall, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign share hands-on craft projects including “snake” book weights and two simple sewn books that you can use for outreach activities at your library.
Turning Data into Action: Responding to Illinois Students' Need for Equity of Course Materials
March 4, 2025
Hear how a diverse group of institutions are responding to Illinois students’ course material experiences and preferences expressed in the 2023 Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective.
Panelists: Dr. Lauren Kosrow, College of DuPage; Scott Ebbing and Tammy Kuhn-Schnell, Lincoln Land Community College; Amanda Pippitt, Millikin University;
Michelle Oh, Oakton College; Amber Burts, Southern Illinois University Carbondale
First Amendment Audit Training for Frontline Staff
February 25, 2025
During this program, Dustin Smaby shares basic knowledge about First Amendment audits, what typically happens during an audit, and the key strategies for successfully navigating an audit. Video examples of audits created by Vernon Area Public Library staff are used to highlight what (and what not) to do during an audit.
Resources:
Behind the Bulletin: A Look at Reviewing Children’s Literature and Its Role in the Professional Field
February 11, 2025
During this program, Kate Quealy-Gainer gives an overview of what it’s like to review children’s literature for a professional journal, discussing the ins and outs of the process, from working with publishers to final edits. The presentation also touches on what role the Bulletin believes reviews have in the field, especially in light of the current upswing in book challenges.
Interview Question Design
February 6, 2025
Effective interview questions are key to making fair, informed hiring decisions. In this webinar, you will learn best practices for crafting meaningful questions to help you make job-relevant hiring decisions. Ben Mead Harvey explores the concept of bias and its impact on the interview process before diving into actionable strategies to design questions that genuinely assess the candidates' knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Resources:
Library Grant Writing Basics: An overview
January 22, 2025
Anne Craig assists participants in identifying sources of grant funding from private and public funders, understanding the essential elements of grantsmanship, completing a grant proposal application package according to a Notice of Funding Opportunity; taking action on the proposal based on the results of the funder’s decision; and understanding the most common missteps in preparing an application package.
OER Ancillary Creation with Generative AI
January 14, 2025
Lily Dubach and Rebecca McNulty, University of Central Florida, share questions to consider before using AI in conjunction with OER, including current guidelines on Creative Commons licensing. With those questions in mind, they workshop approaches to using a variety of AI tools to support content creation and revision while still prioritizing human oversight and expertise in all steps of the generative process. They also discuss current complexities surrounding copyright, ethical uses of AI, and associated questions as they continue to evolve.
Library Succession Planning in the United States
December 11, 2024
Dr. Crystal Goldman discusses the results of qualitative and quantitative research she has conducted on succession planning in academic libraries in the U.S., including how common succession planning activities are, who has knowledge of and gets to participate in these activities, and what barriers libraries face in enacting succession plans. Crystal also considers how her findings relate to libraries outside of academia and shares practical advice on how libraries can use succession planning to improve recruitment and retention.
The period of availability for this recording has expired on February 11, 2025.
AI, Art, and Copyright
November 19, 2024
In this workshop, Siobhan McKissic and Dr. Mary Borgo Ton, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, take a behind-the-scenes look at how these tools are built and discuss the ways that people are using AI generated images to create new bodies of work, streamline their research processes, and beautifully muddy current and future copyright waters. You’ll learn your rights as an image creator, and hopefully have a few more answers about where the machine’s art ends and yours begins.
Developing an Archives: Embracing the Messiness of the Real World
September 18, 2024
Rebecca Fitzsimmons, Ashley Howdeshell, and Megan Ryan discuss how to assess and plan for the care and development of your archive. The conversation applies to all sizes of collections, from a small storage cupboard to the contents of a large storeroom.
Library Workplace Morale: The Renewals Colloquium
September 10, 2024
Kaetrena Davis Kendrick discusses low-morale experience development, factors and systems that show up in various library workplaces, and influences that challenge recovery from low morale. A brief review of emerging and established countermeasures is also shared.
This session was not recorded.
Funding to Preservation: A Digital Content Life Cycle Webinar Series
In this 6-part Professional Development Alliance webinar series hosted by CARLI and FLVC, learn about grant opportunities to fund digitization, workflows for processing born-digital materials, digitization best practices, digital preservation basics, and the importance of metadata in digital content.
Session 1: GRANT OPPORTUNITIES WITH THE NATIONAL HISTORIC PUBLICATIONS AND RECORDS COMMISSION
June 4, 2024
Dr. Julie Fisher, Director for Publishing Programs, National Historical Publications and Records Commission, National Archives and Records Administration, shares exciting grant opportunities including the program to support Collaborative Digital Editions.The goal of this program is to provide access to, and editorial context for, the historical documents and records that tell the American story. Projects may focus on broad historical movements in U.S. history, including any aspect of African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, and Native American history, such as law (including the social and cultural history of the law), politics, social reform, business, military, the arts, and other aspects of the national experience.
Recording made available by FLVC.
Session 2: PROCESSING BORN-DIGITAL MATERIALS
June 11, 2024
Sarah Cogley and Grace Trimper detail the workflows used by the team at University at Buffalo's Special Collections to process born-digital records including: working with donors, initial collection review, describing digital records, and working with hybrid collections.
Recording made available by FLVC.
Session 3: DIGITAL PRESERVATION BASICS WITH STORAGE MEDIA AND DIGITAL FORENSICS
June 18, 2024
Ashlyn Velte introduces the basics of digital preservation. Ashlyn helps identify different storage media encountered in archival collections as well as introduce digital forensics tools to help with data integrity and authenticity.
Recording made available by FLVC.
Session 4: NEWSPAPER DIGITIZATION AND PRESERVATION AT ILLINOIS
July 16, 2024
William Schlaack details newspaper digitization and best practices at the University of Illinois. Described are the selection, collation, quality control, and digital preservation elements to newspaper digitization. Special attention is given to the work done as a part of the National Digital Newspaper Program.
Session 5: METADATA IN DIGITAL CONTENT: A LOOK AT SHAREABLE METADATA IN AGGREGATION SERVICES
July 30, 2024
Megan Pearson, Project Coordinator for the Illinois Digital Heritage Hub (IDHH), the Illinois Hub for the DPLA, shares her experience with aggregating metadata and working with metadata created by other institutions, including standardization practices and methods used by the IDHH, and offer some thoughts on how to create shareable metadata across environments.
Mental Health in Library Settings Training Course
May 8, 2024
Tom Miebach and Justin York provide a basic overview of common mental health situations that may arise in library settings, with the goal of emphasizing an empathic understanding for the patrons experiencing these mental health challenges. The presenters discuss strategies for crisis management including de-escalation and effective communication skills to use with patrons in distress. Lastly, they describe strategies library professionals may use to avoid compassion fatigue and burn-out. Attendees who would like more training in these areas after this webinar are encouraged to check out the full training course created by the University of Illinois School of Social Work.
Resources:
- Recording
- Training Course: Working with Mental Health Situations in Library Settings
- Recommended Resource: A Trauma-Informed Framework for Supporting Patrons: The PLA Workbook of Best Practices
Poison in the Stacks? Ongoing Research on Heavy Metals in 19th Century Books
April 30, 2024
Recent research in the cultural heritage field has identified the presence of arsenic and other heavy metals in pigments used on 19th Century books. Patti Gibbons, Tonia Grafakos, and Shelby Strommer provide a brief introduction to this area of research and how it became a hot topic in the conservation field, and an overview of projects currently underway at Northwestern University, University of Chicago, and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. They discuss their ongoing research, as well as access and handling policies for 19th C. materials, at their respective institutions. They also provide information to help smaller institutions decide how they may want to approach potentially toxic heavy metals in their own collections.
This session was not recorded.
Key Findings and Student Reflections from the "Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective"
March 5, 2024
The Consortium of Academic and Research Libraries in Illinois (CARLI) conducted the 2023 “Illinois Course Materials Survey: Student Perspective” in order to identify Illinois students’ needs regarding affordable course materials and interest in Open Educational Resources or other affordable course material options. CARLI staff Nicole Swanson, Elizabeth Clarage, and Michele Leigh report key findings from the survey and a student panel including Alejandro Bottia-Forero, Franklin Ocaña II, Ayesha Shafiuddin, Lauren Stec, and Claudia Zarycki reflected on these results. Christina Norton moderated this student panel.
Intercultural Awareness & Microaggressions: Keys to Understanding Power and Privilege
February 6, 2024
In this session, Alejandro Gómez introduced participants to three very important topics - intercultural competency, microaggressions, and power and privilege. Participants gained a better understanding and appreciation for their own experiences and how their own actions and words can have a profound impact on others. Also discussed was how to create more open dialogue at work with co-workers and library patrons, and how to sustain a more inclusive environment.
- This session was not recorded.
A Gentle Introduction to ChatGPT
December 5, 2023
Dr. Mary Borgo Ton shares a technobabble-free introduction to generative AI. Mary discusses what’s happening behind-the-scenes, identifies common issues when working with GPT-generated text, including hallucinated citations, and considers the current state of copyright for AI-generated works.
The FIERCEST Framework
October 31, 2023
Erin Tarr shares her FIERCEST Framework to give you the tools to create a life you wake up EXCITED to live each day of your life!
Resources:
- Recording
- List of resources shared during the presentation
Giving a Hand Up: Why Mentorship Matters
October 17, 2023
Susan Howell and Tammie Busch discuss the benefits of mentorship, how one finds a mentor, and how to be a mentor.
Academic Librarians' Opinions on Social Justice Advocacy
October 11, 2023
Dr. Judith Brink Drescher reveals the results of 113 academic librarians surveyed regarding their views on social justice advocacy. As part of a mixed-methods exploration, both quantitative and qualitative elements ar explored, as well as the implications for practice. Drescher also introduces the follow-up survey "Exploring Sexual Orientation, Gender Identity, and Expression in Academic Libraries" and shares preliminary results.
This program was not recorded.
Let Freedom Read: How to Take a Stand for Intellectual Freedom and Support Fellow Library Workers in Illinois and Across the Nation
September 26, 2023
Dr. Janice Del Negro and Betsy Gomez share the current state of the nation regarding intellectual freedom in libraries and reflect on the progress happening in Illinois with new legislation HB2789. They discuss ways your institutions and you personally can take a stand for intellectual freedom and ways to respond to challenges. They share how to build community support for your library, and the importance of self care.
Successful Workplace Communications Series, Part 1: Navigating Difficult Conversations
July 25, 2023
Ben Mead-Harvey explains how to effectively navigate difficult conversations. He opens with a discussion of the fight-or-flight response, which leads to ineffective behaviors in tense conversations. He follows with specific strategies you can use in-the-moment to guide the conversation to an effective conclusion. The session finishes with long-term strategies to implement that will help keep things amicable when difficult conversations arise.
Resources:
Successful Workplace Communications Series, Part 2: Assume Positive Intent
September 12, 2023
Ben Mead Harvey presents the case that others' intentions are irrelevant in deciding how to handle situations. Further, he proposes that you always assume they are acting with good intentions, even when there is evidence to the contrary. Ben discusses techniques that encourage you to assume positive intent and explore the effectiveness of those strategies.
Resources:
Shared Spaces Series, Part 1: Tales of Sharing Spaces
May 9, 2023
In this webinar moderated by Stephanie Davis Kahl, presenters Michelle Boule Smith and Carolyn Ciesla share two separate presentations describing their experiences and advice on sharing academic library space with other campus units.
Shared Spaces Series, Part 2: Getting to a Commons Goal: Designing the New Library Commons at the University of Illinois Springfield
May 16, 2023
In this webinar moderated by Stephanie Davis Kahl, presenters Pattie Piotrowski and Sarah Sagmoen describe their experiences with shared spaces, concentrating on the planning for the University of Illinois Springfield's new Library Commons.
Intentionally Recruiting for Diversity in Librarianship: Reflections on a Year Later
April 4, 2023
Tammie Busch, Calvin Carson, Lora Del Rio, Jacob Del Rio, Elizabeth Kamper, Shelly McDavid, and Simone Williams reflect on how year two of the Diverse Librarianship Career Training and Education Program is going and highlight the work that has been completed on the forthcoming toolkit.
Working with Fire Professionals
January 25, 2022
Chief John High, Sr. at the Illinois Fire Service Institute identifies fire hazards, how to prevent them, and how the fire department will respond to the call. Learn how everyday items can help start a fire and how fast a fire can develop. Firefighters face a variety of hazards as they battle a burning building besides the heat and smoke. There are collapses of ceilings and walls, holes burned through the floors and live electrical and gas lines. When a fire occurs, the results are often devastating.
All Systems Active
Search I-Share Catalog »
Search CARLI Digital Collections »