Meetings That Matter

Meetings are something every librarian deals with throughout their career. This book shows you how to make sure they are all successful and engaging.

Meetings are something every librarian deals with throughout their career. Some meetings drag on seemingly without end, while others are engaging and productive. The difference–meeting preparation and skilled facilitation! Via this fun and interactive workbook readers learn about meeting structures and facilitation skills that, with practice, will improve meetings of all kinds.

Authors Cindy Fesemyer and Amanda Standerfer discuss group dynamics, facilitation core competencies, and tools to use for in-person and virtual meetings. Contributors Mia Henry and Martin Alvarado add content on diversity, equity and inclusion, and working with multilingual and multicultural groups.

This interactive book includes worksheets to help you envision and structure successful meetings, build meeting agendas, practice facilitation skills, prepare for potentially difficult facilitation situations, and close your meeting in a way that prepares you for the next one. Readers will find themselves ready to structure and facilitate more productive meetings, as well as lively library and community conversations.

As facilitation is not currently taught in many, if any, library school programs, this book fills in the gaps and allows library professionals to learn very practical skills at their own pace. In addition to worksheets throughout the text, readers are given exercises to help them practice the various skills required for effective facilitation.