Moving Toward Mentorship

Here's an update from the HVLA Mentorship committee:

At the beginning of the school year, a call went out to the HVLA membership for volunteers to create a mentorship committee. In late November, we held our first planning meeting. A mentorship program is a complicated beast. It involves determining a clear purpose, recruiting mentors & mentees, training participants, and ensuring confidentiality. Launching a mentorship program is the committee’s long-term goal. As a first step, we decided to spend this year establishing a series of Empowerment Meet-Ups, open to all members of HVLA, with the purpose of gathering a supportive group of colleagues to discuss and brainstorm specific topics in a casual atmosphere. Librarians would be encouraged to come armed with an idea or project they are trying to implement or realize in their school. Our collective energies, positive collaboration and creativity could then be used to pose solutions, provide suggestions or facilitate sharing 
of resources. Possible future meet-up topics include, 

• Catching the Big Fish: Landing the Library Job You Want 

• Clever Collaboration with Teachers

• Research Projects “Show and Tell”

• Expanding Your Professional Network

The first meet-up will take place early in the New Year in a central location (near Union 
Square). The topic will be “Advocating for You and Your Library Program.” We hope to 
see many of you there.

---Laura Bishop, Rachel Berkey, Angela Carstensen, Nishette Isaac