The San José State University School of Information and LYRASIS Learning are now offering professional development and training courses to meet the needs of information professionals.

LYRASIS Learning is an education platform for webinars on subjects, such as content solutions, leadership and emerging trends, preservation solutions and technology. iSchool instructors will be teaching courses through the partnership.

iSchool Director Sandra Hirsh attended the LYRASIS Leaders Forum, “Experiments in Innovation,” in San Francisco, Calif. in 2018. While there, she realized the potential for iSchool instructors to contribute to the LYRASIS course catalog like the school does through its eLearning partnership with the American Library Association.

“LYRASIS was excited about this possibility to expand their course offerings with our high-quality instructors, and they were also pleased with the idea that a percentage of their course revenue would go to support our iSchool student scholarships,” she said.

The cooperative provides new opportunities for information professionals to continue their learning by taking short-form online courses taught by iSchool faculty members who are experts in their areas. Drs. Sue Alman, Steven Bell, and Michele Villagran are already scheduled to lead classes this year.

“Dr. Villagran is teaching a course for LYRASIS titled, ‘Bias and Culture Matters: Cultural Intelligence Series.’ It’s an extension of what we offer at the iSchool. For example, we have a course that we run regularly called Intercultural Communication,” Hirsh said.

The iSchool works with the LYRASIS team to identify course topics from its master’s degree programs that would be of interest to the LYRASIS community. Faculty members are approached to see if they would be interested in developing a short course on the topic for LYRASIS Learning. It is an on-going collaborative process.

iSchool students would not enroll in LYRASIS Learning, but they might be interested in taking the short courses after graduation for continuing education. 

Classes taught by iSchool faculty members for the March – June 2019 LYRASIS course schedule include:

• Working Together Better: Group Dynamics and Conflict Facilitation
• Design Think Your Way to a Better Library
• Pass it On: Social Media and Word-of-Mouth Marketing
• Bias and Culture Matters: Part 1 of the Cultural Intelligence Series
• Cultural Intelligence: What it is and Why it Matters: Part 2 of the Cultural Intelligence Series
• Applying Cultural Intelligence in Libraries and Next Steps: Part 3 of the Cultural Intelligence Series

To learn more about courses offered through LYRASIS Learning, visit the website. All courses led by iSchool faculty are indicated by the school’s logo.