Welcome to the Ephrata Public Library competency training site. Through the next 4 1/2 months, you will explore online options for staff and patrons. By the end of this experience, you should be able to teach patrons to use library-related resources with skill. These items are part of the competencies that you will need in your new position. One of the important things as you move through the weeks is to 1) always use your library email and 2) keep a list of your usernames and passwords for the resources we review. It is a frustrating experience to be ready to use a resource and have to wrack your brain for passwords. For the purposes of these exercises, I'd recommend using the same username and password for everything. However, if you are uncomfortable with that, just keep a list somewhere handy.
I'm sure some of you are wondering why we are doing this. The simple answer is that times are changing. Long gone is the card catalog and simple reference questions. We are now living in a technological world. When people visit the library, their questions often deal with computers and we have to be ready to serve them. As resources and technologies change, we have to be on the cutting edge - to help patrons with basic computer questions as well as those that are working on more complex projects. This is our job as a library. We must provide excellent service in order to receive excellent support.