Building an AMICAL Peer Knowledge Exchange: Matching needs with expertise for mentoring, training and consultation

This structured discussion aims to generate and refine together practicable ideas for facilitating peer-to-peer mentoring, training and consultation among AMICAL colleagues. The focus will be primarily on libraries, but colleagues from other areas are welcome to join the discussion. We will first present some general goals that have been identified over the years for facilitating these peer connections, along with some rough prototypes of methods we could use for this. Through guided discussions, partly in breakouts, we will:

• clarify what we should be aiming for with AMICAL peer mentoring, training and consultation
• identify specific conditions or requirements might influence the success of these connections
• gather feedback and recommendations in reaction to the prototype tools presented for peer matching
• identify next steps for building an AMICAL Peer Knowledge Exchange Network

This session, proposed with the support of AMICAL’s Leadership & Assessment Committee, is organized by a group interested in assessing professional development needs and organizing peer-to-peer knowledge exchange among AMICAL members.