CILIP and GLL are delighted to announce they are working together in 2022 to provide a bespoke training programme to GLL library staff, with CILIP delivering ten training sessions.

There will be a training session per month between March and December 2022. The majority of the sessions will be delivered as online live, interactive events.

Training sessions are being offered to staff across the five GLL library authorities and are proving very popular. Sessions will be covering subjects such as customer care, managing difficult situations, improving inclusion for neurodivergent people and people with dementia, and getting to know library e-resources.

The first session on Tuesday 29 March, ‘Public Libraries: past, present and future’, is an introduction to public libraries presented by Diana Edmonds, National Libraries Director at GLL.

CILIP Head of Sector Development, Claire Robe said ‘We are very pleased to be working with GLL to provide specialist skills and knowledge training on key issues for public library staff. These sessions are being developed with GLL to address their specific requirements. This is a great way to provide inclusive and accessible training for GLL staff wherever they work.’

Diana Edmonds, GLL National Libraries Director said: ‘We want all our library staff to have relevant in-house training delivered by inspirational trainers. Our partnership with CILIP will enable us to do just that. We understand what our teams need to learn - and CILIP has developed the courses and sourced the trainers to meet those needs. It's a great combination.’

Lorraine Patrinos, GLL Associate Director of Learning and Development, added: “As a charitable social enterprise, learning and development is at the heart of our values and we want our people to learn and grow their careers with us. This is the first step and we will be taking feedback from those who participate in the programme, so that we can continue to evolve and refine what we offer.”

About GLL

Established in 1993, GLL is the largest UK-based charitable social enterprise delivering leisure, health and community services. Under the consumer facing brand Better, we operate 258 public Sports and Leisure facilities, 88 libraries, ten children’s centres and five adventure playgrounds in partnership with 50 local councils, public agencies and sporting organisations.

GLL exists to make community services and spaces better for everyone. In practice, that means investing all surpluses back into providing quality leisure, health and library facilities for the good of the communities where we operate. We aim to get more people, more active, more often. We promote healthy and active lifestyles, giving communities access to facilities that help improve their health and happiness through participation in activities Alongside our core leisure and library divisions, GLL runs sport and legacy development, health intervention and education, as well as offering the GLL Sports Foundation, one of the largest independent support programmes for talented young athletes in the UK. Under our library division we currently operate in five partnerships: Dudley, Lincolnshire and the London boroughs of Wandsworth, Greenwich and Bromley.

A list of the libraries can be found here