Continuity during COVID-19: Peer consulting for library leaders’ and their challenges

Dear AMICAL colleagues,

Continuing our series of forums intended to help AMICAL members to draw on their collective wisdom in facing the challenges of COVID-19, this event aims to bring our library directors together for a session of peer consulting. The session is being organized by Jeff Gima (AMICAL Director), Evi Tramantza (Director of Libraries, American College of Thessaloniki) and Asma Al-Kanan (University Librarian, American University of Kuwait), but almost all of the session will be used for library directors to discuss and get advice on their own specific challenges that they’re facing. Library directors are asked to come to the meeting with a specific challenge in mind – something that they would like to get advice on from other AMICAL library directors.

Overview of the session

To organize this session, we’re stringing together several meeting formats from Liberating Structures, a set of group facilitation techniques that are based on principles of inclusiveness and strong engagement by all participants.

After asking participants for some quick feedback about what kind of needs they have for upcoming events and for types of support from their peers, we’ll have several brief rounds of Impromptu Networking in pairs, where you’ll answer each other the questions “What big challenge do you bring to this gathering? What do you hope to get from and give this group?” Each partner will have about two minutes to answer the questions, and then you’ll get re-paired with a new partner for another chance to reformulate your responses to the questions.

The bulk of the meeting will then be devoted to a Troika Consulting session, in groups of three. One participant (the “client”) will describe to the other two in their group (who act as “consultants”) the challenge/problem/question they would like advice on. The consultants have a few minutes to ask the client clarifying questions. The client then turns off their mic and video while listening carefully to the two consultants discuss and generate ideas, suggestions and advice in response. After a quick debrief, the roles rotate, one of the consultants becomes the client, and the whole process repeats. A final round allows the remaining consultant to act as client so that all participants have both given and received consulting advice.

We’ll wrap up the structured part of the event at the end of 1 hour, but we’ll keep the Zoom room open for an additional 15-30 minutes in case anyone wishes to stay on for an informal ‘watercooler’ discussion – with breakout rooms available for any pairs or small groups who want to continue discussing specific challenges or suggestions.

Tentative outline

• Intro, quick feedback and explanation of meeting structure
• Impromptu Networking in rotating pairs
• Troika Consulting in threes
• Wrap-up of main event
• Informal discussion

Attendance is restricted to library directors. The link to attend the meeting has been sent to AMICAL’s library directors and representatives by email. The meeting will not be recorded.

This event will be conducted using Zoom, which may require installation in advance of the event. Review our online event guidelines to ensure you are setup to participate with a microphone and/or web cam.