Texas Border Business
By Sara Reyna
South Texas College Pecan and Mid-Valley libraries partnered with the Harlingen Public Library to create an accessible training experience for respective staff.
Elizabeth Hollenbeck, librarian III outreach and instruction specialist, assisted in spearheading the partnership to provide STC library staff in Pecan and Mid-Valley campuses an opportunity for professional and personal development by mitigating the need to travel across the state.
“This idea came about because whenever we’re able to send staff to professional state conferences they come back invigorated to work, they’ve heard new ideas and have made new connections, however we’re only able to send a few library staff members because of funding and other logistics,” Hollenbeck said. “Many of these state conferences are out of our area like in Houston or Dallas, so we have to consider mileage, hotels and other expenses to be able to attend. This prompted us to work together in creating a similar conference experience for our library staff that would be accessible to a larger group and would be cost efficient for all parties involved.”
Like the Texas Library Association (TLA) conference this training partnership was meant to bring library community members together to inspire, motivate and connect through opportunities of personal and professional development.
Lillian Carillo, campus librarian II in Mid-Valley, expressed her excitement about getting to host the Harlingen library staff, collaborating with their youth services librarians and showing them the children’s area in Mid-Valley.
“The cross training was impactful as it allowed the Harlingen Public Library staff to see the valuable services STC offers our students, faculty/staff and community users,” she said. “They were impressed with our facility and thoroughly enjoyed the tour of our Child Development Center as well as our children’s area. This collaboration was such a great learning experience for not only their public library staff, but also our academic library staff as well.”
The cross training offered the opportunity for both libraries, STC and Harlingen, to have an in-depth tour of each other’s facilities, which included getting first-hand experience with work tasks, reviewing library procedures and utilizing a worksheet designed to help STC staff gather their observations and take note of creative sparks.
Following the tours, library staff carved out time to participate in discussions and reflections to create space for the exchange of challenges, ideas and strategies to strengthen library operations in the future.
Rolando Ramirez, Harlingen Public Library assistant director, believed that participating in this cross training gave staff a sense of connection regardless of the differences in their library services and community members.
“Participating in this cross training allowed us to network with STC staff which was impactful for us because we got to experience the other side of library services, the academic side,” Ramirez shared. “Making these connections is pivotal to our professional development, we got to bond over challenges we each face and had the eye-opening experience of seeing the way technology is utilized which has inspired us to explore how we can maximize resources for our community members. We are hopeful that this is the beginning of many more collaborations with STC because it is important for us to know how to service all the Rio Grande Valley, not just our beautiful community of Harlingen.”
Hollenbeck agreed that these partnerships help build future leaders in librarianship and stronger connections to better serve the community.
“We quickly realized that we have so many similarities in our mission to serve and impact our communities, taking the time to work together was inspiring to our respective staff members, it was like seeing light bulbs going off,” Hollenbeck expressed. “This cross-training opportunity was incredible to witness, and covering a spectrum of topics from everyday operations, technical services, signage, challenges and strategies allowed space for our staff to broaden their experiences as many have only trained in academic libraries.
Hollenbeck added that the success of this cross-training partnership has opened the door to new possibilities for other collaborations with local organizations.
