Competency-Based Career Planning for Reference and User Services Professionals

Jo Bell Whitlatch is reference librarian, history and political science selector, and occasional instructor at San Jose State University Library. She offers general reference and basic library instruction as well as specialized research assistance and collection development in history and political science. A leader in the professional reference discipline, she is past president of the Reference and User Services Association (RUSA) and has served as author and/or editor on Reference Assessment Manual, Library Users and Reference Services, and The Role of Academic Reference Librarian. She holds a doctorate in library and information studies from the University of California, Berkeley.

Beth S. Woodard has been an academic reference librarian for her whole career but developed deep interests in staff development and training and teaching when she coordinated a separate information desk staffed by graduate assistants. From training a dozen graduate assistants to coordinating an orientation program for 75 graduate assistants at the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign, she developed staff training programs, retreats, and wellness activities for the entire library―for librarians, academic professionals, and support staff in addition to graduate and undergraduate students. She is currently teaching reference and library management at the Ischool at UIUC.