Mapping the Landscapes

Documenting the continuing education and professional development needs of staff in and across cultural memory institutions.

The Mapping the Landscapes project served to document continuing education and professional development training needs, current offerings, and potential cross-germination opportunities within and across libraries, archives, and museums (LAMs). The project collected, analyzed, and reported on data from more than 2,700 LAM survey respondents about their continuing education needs. It also produced a methodological framework for collecting, accessing, and analyzing CE/PD data, including survey instruments, focus group instruments, and analysis and data visualization tools. The project has provided a strong foundation for conducting regular surveys every 2-5 years to understand how needs in these three fields overlap and diverge. It also has provided baseline data from 2016 against which we may now begin to track how those needs change over time.

Project Outputs:

Greatest Competency Needs by Sector, published 17 January 2017
Self-Identified Library, Archives, and Museum Professional Development Needs 2016 Edition, published 16 December 2016
Storyboard Data Visualization Users Guide (created in collaboration with TrueBearing), published 07 July 2016
Interactive Survey Data Storyboards (created in collaboration with TrueBearing), published 07 July 2016
Focus Group Final Report, published 25 July 2016
Continuing Education/Professional Development Needs Assessment Survey; published 05 June 2016
LAM Education Needs Assessments: Bridging the Gaps, published 04 November 2015
Spanning Our Field Boundaries: Mindfully Managing LAM Collaborations, published 06 October 2015

Project Partners:

Academy of Certified Archivists (ACA), Nancy Melley
ALA/SAA/AAM Committee on Archives, Libraries, and Museums (CALM), Elizabeth Call
American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (AIC), Eric Pourchot
Association for Information Science and Technology (ASIS&T), Harry W. Bruce, Sandy Hirsh, Dick Hill
Association for Library Collections and Technical Services, Charles Wilt
Association of Academic Museums and Galleries, Jill Hartz
Association of Children’s Museums (ACM), Victoria Garvin
Association of College and Research Libraries (ACRL), Mary Ellen Davis, Kathryn Deiss
Association of Midwest Museums (AMM), Donna Sack
Association of Research Libraries (ARL), Mark Puente
Association of Science-Technology Centers (ASTC), Wendy Hancock
Association of Southeastern Research Libraries, John Burger
Califa, Linda Crowe
Chief Officers of State Library Agencies (COSLA), Cal Shepard
Council of State Archivists (CoSA), Anne Ackerson, Matt Veatch
Digital Preservation Management Workshop, Nancy McGovern
Heritage Preservation, Tom Clareson
InfoPeople, Lisa Barnhart, Eileen O’Shea
Internet Archive, Jefferson Bailey
Library Information Technology Association
Lyrasis, Laurie Gemmill Arp
Midwest Archives Conference (MAC), Tanya Zanish-Belcher, Ellen Swain, Lisa Sjoberg
Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC), Brian Keough, Laurie Sather
National Association for Interpretation (NAI), Margo Carlock
National Association of Government Archives and Records Administrators (NAGARA), Tanya Marshall
New England Museum Association, Dan Yaeger
New Media Consortium, Larry Johnson
North American Serials Interest Group (NASIG), Jeannie Castro
Northeast Document Conservation Center (NEDCC), Jessica Bitely
OCLC, Kendra Morgan
Public Knowledge Project (PKP) School, Kevin Stranack
Public Library Association (PLA), Barb Macikas, Scott Allen
Regional Archival Associations Consortium (RAAC), Amanda Focke
Society of American Archivists (SAA), Solveig De Sutter, Nancy Beaumont, Kathleen Roe, Helen Wong Smith, Donna E. McCrea
Southeastern Museums Conference (SEMC), Mike Hudson
Urban Libraries Council (ULC), Angela Goodrich
Virginia Association of Museums, Jennifer Thomas