Benefits of Internal Professional Development for Academic Librarians

Background

Many academic librarians have unique positions compared to typical academic staff. Often we have faculty status with some sort of tenure process. As faculty, especially when in a tenure track, we are expected to stay professionally active. An ongoing commitment to development generally is in our nature as well as in our position descriptions. We do not simply have jobs, we have professions and wish to continually learn and grow within our professions and organizations. Because of this, academic librarians do not usually need much incentive to seek out professional opportunities. However, much of the focus tends to be within our professional organizations and other external means to learn and grow. These methods are not to be discredited. Many of the ideas we can teach each other in-house are ideas that we have learned outside of our own walls. Innovative ideas coming from different organizations with different cultures are extremely important to spark change. Internal professional development does not replace external development; instead they should be seen as complementary activities. External professional development is very important even in financially difficult times. On the same note, internal professional development is equally as important even in financially prosperous times. However, it seems that little attention is paid to the importance and significance of internal professional development except, perhaps, in terms of financial savings.