The Department continued to offer regional meetings for directors, statewide virtual meet-ups with public library and Department of Library staff, and a twice-weekly digest for librarians and trustees covering departmental and state updates, learning opportunities, and library and library-adjacent events locally, statewide, and nationally.Training and funding was offered related to library services for underserved populations, including funding for librarians to attend PLA equity, diversity,inclusion, and social justice training, an ALA American Sign Language class,and in-house workshops on legal resources, resources for veterans, and fair housing.

The Departments spent a significant effort encouraging and supporting librarians applying for grants, in particular the ALA Libraries Transforming Communities: Focus on Small and Rural Libraries. 35Vermont libraries received these grants, making Vermont one of the most well-represented states in the nationwide project. The Department of Libraries also coordinates the northeast regional hub for this project, which is an optional post-award initiative to deepen community engagement and cohort building.

The Department continued to offer funding for conference attendance and paid online training for public, school, and academic librarians. Examples include virtual ALA Midwinter and Annual conferences, the Association for Rural & Small Libraries annual virtual conference, an ALA course in American Sign Language, and School Library Journal/Library Journal training for public and school library collaborations.

A new initiative was sending a cohort of Department staff and public librarians to a multi-session PLA Equity,Diversity, Inclusion and Social Justice training. The attendees prepared workshops based on the training for Vermont librarians and presented at the Vermont Library Association annual conference.

Other recipients of professional development funding also presented post-event reflections. This offered an enhanced experience for them as they synthesized and summarized their experience and learning and also allowed staff who were unable to attend to gain knowledge from peers.

One of the most significant changes to our Continuing Education program is the delivery of content for the Certificate of Public Librarianship program. In past years some potential participants chose not to enroll because of the barrier of attending classes in-person. Online courses and Niche Academy remove that challenge and allow for significantly more robust and more interactive core courses. These improvements are reflected in the 75 new Certificate enrollees during this reporting time.  

Core certificate courses now gather in weekly synchronous online meetings over the course of several weeks, work on group assignments online between classes,break out into small groups during classes, and present to each other.Resources, assignments, class contact information and the class structure are stored on Niche Academy for students to reference at any time during or after the class. This has allowed for much greater engagement and deeper information delivery than the previous in-person classes that took place over one or two days.