How It Started and Its Purpose
TSLAC just launched its new workforce development pages! It all started during Spring 2023, when TSLAC luckily had the opportunity to have on board University of Texas Library Science Capstone student, Tyler Roberge, who had a fundamental role in making the web pages possible. The purpose behind the pages is to provide a one-stop source for libraries to find contacts and inspiration to create or enhance their services to a very wide age range of career seekers, entrepreneurs, small-business owners, and all kinds of programs or subcategories that fall within the workforce domain. In other words, strong library workforce development programs help to advance the economic prosperity of patrons, which has a ripple effect. Just check out SCALEUP’s web page for an example that shows the relationship between the success of small businesses and the U.S. economy, and sign up to get notified when SCALEUP’s small business resource guide is released. Also, see related articles on TSLAC’s resources for businesses page.
What You’ll Find and How to Make It Better
In addition to upcoming workforce events and videos from fellow libraries and non-library workforce partners across Texas, you will find numerous resources and inspiration to create and/or strengthen your workforce development programming. Whether you want to offer an entrepreneur boot camp or financial literacy workshops for teens, reentry services for formerly incarcerated community members, job fairs with your local workforce development board, or host a business networking event at your library with 1 Million Cups, there are countless ideas to try and new partnerships to form. If you already have a workforce development program, and you would like to evaluate its design to improve services, there are toolkits on Workforce GPS that can be used as models to assess and decide what the next best step forward would be.
TSLAC’s new workforce development pages are updated with you in mind, so we ask for your help in making sure these resources remain relevant to you. Let us know what you want to see, what you are looking for, what you need, and we pledge to routinely improve the pages so that the content is of value to you and to staff at your library for years to come. Please reach out to us with any recommendations, suggestions, feedback, questions about any of the pages, or resources to share that would help other libraries and their patrons! You can reach out directly to Maria Freed, TSLAC’s Workforce Development Consultant, or take the Anonymous Feedback Form for TSLAC’s Workforce Development Web Pages.
