Back to basics: Sharpening foundational skills with LiFT
When we think about continuing education and professional development for library staff, it’s easy to focus on exciting new things: the latest technologies, innovative programming ideas, or emerging service models. What’s the next big trend? How can we demonstrate our relevance to the community?
While staying ahead of the curve is exciting, lasting impact starts with the basics. What we’ve learned at WebJunction is that the most important and sought-after learning opportunities focus on the core skills that keep libraries running smoothly and staff thriving. Foundational training empowers teams to respond to change with confidence, deliver consistently excellent service, and build stronger connections with their communities. To invest in core skills is to strengthen the library field as a whole.
Why the basics matter
Year after year, our course catalog enrollments tell the same story: library staff are hungry for training that strengthens their core competencies. Take our course Shelving with Dewey, for example—it’s consistently our most popular offering. And over 13,000 learners have enrolled in the Alternative Basic Library Education (ABLE) courses, created by the Idaho Commission for Libraries (ICfL), which focus on essential skills like cataloging and collection management. Content that teaches these foundational skills comprises nearly half of our top 10 courses in the WebJunction catalog.
But here’s the challenge: access to training in these core areas is often limited, whether due to cost, availability, or outdated materials. As popular as the ABLE courses are, they were developed years ago and don’t address some of the realities of today’s libraries. And with the library workforce experiencing significant turnover and disruption, the need for robust foundational training is more urgent than ever.
Introducing LiFT
That’s why we’re excited to announce LiFT—Library Foundational Training, a refreshed series of courses designed to empower library staff with the essential skills they need to succeed.
LiFT builds on the legacy of the ABLE courses, updating and modernizing the content to reflect current best practices. Developed in partnership with the ICfL, LiFT will initially focus on collection management and collection development, one of the top training needs identified in our recent surveys. The courses will cover topics such as:
- Introduction to library collections
- Introduction to library collection policies
- Selection and acquisitions
- Organizing and maintaining a collection
- Collection assessment
- Weeding the collection
These courses are designed to be practical, accessible, and immediately applicable, helping staff at all levels, whether they’re new to the field or looking to refresh their expertise.
What the data tell us
Our journey to create LiFT began with a series of surveys conducted in partnership with ICfL. The team asked library staff, continuing education coordinators, and state library agency leaders to share their most pressing training needs. Our survey of library staff from all library types and sizes collected 1,152 responses, and several priority areas core to library work became clear:
- 83% of staff respondents identified customer service as core to their work.
- 61% of staff respondents highlighted collection management as a priority area.
- Other critical areas included community engagement (59%), programming (58%), and collection development (56%).
These findings reinforced what we’ve seen in our course enrollment data: foundational skills like collection management and customer service are essential to the day-to-day operations of libraries. The forthcoming LiFT courses address training needs related to collections, but there is a wide range of opportunities for needed learning that the field could address.
Let’s talk
I’m excited to share more about LiFT at the ALA Annual Conference 2025, where I’ll present on the importance of foundational skills in library staff training. If you’ll be attending, I invite you to join my presentation or stop by to chat—I’d love to hear your thoughts and ideas.
And if I don’t see you at ALA, you can stay in the loop by subscribing to WebJunction’s Crossroads newsletter. You’ll be the first to know when the LiFT courses are available, and you’ll learn about the latest resources to support your library’s journey.
Foundational skills may not always grab headlines, but they’re the glue that holds everything together. Let’s embrace the basics and ensure staff have the tools they need to succeed, because when we invest in the fundamentals, we’re investing in the future of libraries. Together, let’s empower the library workforce with confidence—one foundational skill at a time.
This project was made possible in part by a grant from the
Institute of Museum and Library Services (RE-256627-OLS-24) and support from OCLC.