Frontline: online reader development course

An Chomhairle Leabharlanna, in consultation with the Standing Committee on Public Library Staff Training and Development introduced Frontline: an online reading development programme for public library staff in 2008.

Frontline is an interactive online course for library staff developed in the U.K. by Opening the Book which has extensive experience of designing and delivering reading development training courses. The course was adapted for the Irish Public Library context. Frontline can be taken anywhere, at any time, in variable timeslots of five minutes to two hours. It takes 28 hours to complete the course, and participants only need internet access and an email address.

Each library authority is providing the course for its own library staff with a co-ordinator acting as supervisor.

Frontline is structured in 7 modules. Modules 1-4 can be taken as a coherent short course for those who cannot be released to do the whole course. Modules 1-4 explore the needs of different readers, the difference between personal attitudes to reading and the job-related skills of working with books, the power of reader-to-reader promotion and stock awareness. Modules 5-7 cover displaying books and delivering and monitoring a small-scale promotion to an identified audience.

To date 591 library staff have been trained in Frontline.  For further details on Frontline in Ireland contact Domitilla Fagan or Marie Flynn.