Library Worklife

Career Advancement

WebJunction

Assisting Library Staff with Technology and Training

WebJunction is an online community dedicated to emerging technology and training needs of library staff. It’s the place where peers share insights on timely issues such as Internet privacy, filtering software, accessibility compliance, and more. The articles, handouts, courses, and discussions on WebJunction are practical and down-to-earth, and they address the real problems that librarians and library staff face every day.

Since its launch in May of 2003, the WebJunction community has grown to over 8,000 members; they’ve taken more than 6,000 online courses and posted over 2,500 messages to WebJunction’s message boards. Each month the community focuses on a topic of interest to the library community. Recent focuses have included Serving Indigenous and Immigrant Communities and Systems Librarianship for Small Libraries. The site offers a wide range of courses, on topics grouped in these categories: Basic Computing, Using the Internet, Managing Public Access Computing, Applications, and Sustainability, Advocacy and Outreach. Monthly columns like the “Library of the Month” and “I’m Curious, George” (WebJunction’s advice column) keep things interesting.

Members have been enthusiastic. One says, “I experienced the same pleasure of discovery from hiking around WebJunction that I get from browsing in a library or bookstore. WebJunction is a diamond mine!” And another: “I am very impressed with the efforts of the folks at WebJunction. I know how much help WebJunction is to me as a trainer, and how much help it could be to all public libraries in Tennessee.”

WebJunction is a place to make connections with other people who work in libraries, and to stay abreast of the latest in library technology and other aspects of librarianship. Registration is free, and includes access to online courses, the ability to post on message boards, and a subscription to an online newsletter that keeps you up-to-date on what’s happening on WebJunction.

At the 2004 ALA Conference in Orlando, WebJunction announced a new set of partnerships with state libraries in Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, New Mexico, and Washington. These states have developed customized versions of WebJunction to deliver development services to their libraries. Over the next few months these partner sites will grow to include state-specific message boards and online courses.

WebJunction was conceived in 2002, when the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded OCLC Online Computer Library Center a three-year grant to build a Web portal for libraries and other organizations that provide open access to technology and information. WebJunction is the result of that effort, thanks to the collaborative work of five organizations: the Colorado State Library, The Benton Foundation, Isoph, TechSoup, and OCLC. It’s all part of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s visionary Library Program, which has provided over 40,000 computers and Internet access to more than 11,000 libraries across the United States and Canada. Join in the community at http://webjunction.org.