Purpose
The purpose of the APALA Mentoring Program is to provide professional and personal development, inspiration, and encouragement through a supportive mentoring relationship. The specific goals of the program include:
- To provide guidance and coaching to library students and new librarians in their careers and growth as professionals.
- To foster leadership in APALA, ALA, and other professional library associations.
- To facilitate communication between library students, new librarians, and experienced professionals.
Who can apply for the program?
Protégés are library students or librarians with no more than 5 years professional experience (early career protégés), or librarians with 5 or more years of professional experience (mid-career protégés).
Mentors are APALA members with at least 5 years professional experience and are active in professional library associations.
Participants must be or agree to become APALA members by the start of the program. Applicants must submit their application to the Mentoring Committee by July 31, 2024.
How does the program work?
For more information about mentoring programs, watch this APALA webinar about effective mentoring.
The APALA Mentoring Committee actively recruits mentors from the APALA membership. The Committee matches mentoring pairs based on the protégé’s goals, the type of library they work in or would like to work in, geographic location, and the availability of mentors.
Please note that if we are unable to find a suitable mentor for a prospective protégé by August 31, we will try our best to find one for that person later in the year or the next year.
The mentoring arrangement will last from September 1, 2024 – June 30, 2025, although protégés and mentors may continue the arrangement after the program year ends. Mentoring pairs are expected to communicate at least once a month, spend a minimum of two hours working on on the relationship, and to be active in the program for 10 months.
The Committee will check in with participants at least three times during the year. At any time during the program year, participants may contact the Mentoring Committee for assistance.