Training
Online Resources
Events
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Resource Wise: Evaluating Library Collections with Impact
Library budgets and user needs are constantly evolving, making it essential for librarians to make informed, strategic decisions about which resources to keep, renew, or cancel. In this webinar, Erica Barnett from Western Carolina University will share how WCU librarians adapted a rubric originally developed at the University of Eastern Kentucky to evaluate e-resources in a transparent, consistent, and collaborative way.
Moving beyond usage statistics, the session will explore a framework for analyzing e-resources using multiple criteria, including alignment with curriculum and community needs, user experience, cost effectiveness, and the staff time required for resource management. Attendees will learn practical strategies for scoring and categorizing resources, adapting the rubric to local contexts, tracking usage and costs, and communicating recommendations to faculty and campus leadership.
The webinar will also highlight approaches for negotiating with vendors and using data to maximize budget impact while strengthening collections. Participants will leave with an adaptable framework, actionable takeaways, and greater confidence in presenting and justifying resource decisions at their own institutions.
Presenter: Erica Barnett is an Acquisitions Librarian at Western Carolina University who oversees the lifecycle management of library resources amongst many other responsibilities. She is committed to offering as many resources as possible to her community while operating within a limited budget. When not working in spreadsheets, Erica enjoys being active by running, going to the gym, or walking her three dogs (never all at once).
Learning Objectives: Explain how multiple evaluation criteria - including community or curricular alignment, user experience, cost effectiveness, and staff time - can be applied together to assess e-resources more holistically.
Apply a rubric-based framework to score, categorize, and compare e-resources in a transparent and consistent way.
Identify ways to adapt this framework to their own institutional context, supporting clearer communication and more confident decision-making with faculty, administrators, and other stakeholders.Market Smarts: Using Social Explorer for Business and Entrepreneurship
Social Explorer is a powerful data and mapping tool that supports business research, market analysis, and economic decision-making. In this webinar, participants will learn how to use Social Explorer to access and interpret key datasets - including the Consumer Price Index (CPI), U.S. Census data, and the U.S. Business Patterns dataset - to answer real-world business questions.
The session led will demonstrate how Social Explorer can be used for business location analysis, market and demographic profiling, and understanding local economic trends. Attendees will explore practical use cases that support academic Business programs, such as student projects and coursework, as well as community-facing applications that help entrepreneurs, small business owners, and economic development partners make informed decisions.
Designed for librarians serving both academic and public audiences, this webinar will highlight strategies for teaching and promoting Social Explorer, translating complex data into clear insights, and positioning the resource as a bridge between campus research and community entrepreneurship. Participants will leave with concrete examples and ideas they can immediately apply in instruction, reference, and outreach.
Presenters: Jeff Hahn, Director of Academic Sales & Support for Social Explorer and Devon Waugh, Instruction Librarian for NC LIVE
Learning Objectives: Identify and select relevant Social Explorer datasets (including CPI, U.S. Census data, and U.S. Business Patterns) to answer common business research questions related to market demand, location analysis, and local economic conditions.
Create and interpret maps and data tables in Social Explorer to support business and entrepreneurship use cases such as demographic profiling and market analysis for student projects, business plans, and community inquiries.
Develop practical approaches for teaching and promoting Social Explorer, using clear workflows and examples to translate complex data into actionable insights for students, entrepreneurs, and community economic development partners.Management 102 - Building Successful Teams
In this second webinar in the management series, the focus will be on the various types of teams, which teams are most effective in reaching outcomes, and how managers can build and foster effective teams.
In this webinar, we will cover:
- What are the various types of teams in organizations
- What are the criteria for building successful teams
- What are the pitfalls to avoid when building and or managing teams
- What management styles create and foster the most effective teams
- Identify resources for building and maintaining strong teams