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Nebraska Library Commission Website

Earning Continuing Education Credits
for Nebraska Public Librarian Recertification

Continuing education credit is earned for participation in planned learning experiences designed to bring about changes in knowledge, skills, or attitudes which contribute directly to delivery of quality library services and competent practice of librarianship.

During each three-year certification period you need to accrue at least 45 C.E. credits to be recertified at the end of the period. Once you are recertified, all of the C.E. credits that you have earned in the previous certification period will be counted toward that previous period. No C.E. credits may be transferred to a subsequent certification period.

General guidelines:

  • We generally count contact hours.
  • 46 to 74 minutes of instruction = 1 contact hour, or 1 C.E. credit hour
  • 1 CEU, Continuing Education Unit (found in some professional continuing education) = 10 contact hours
  • Attendance at learning activities that are presented jointly with recreational activities or with business meetings will earn credits only for the learning portion of the program.
  • If you aren't sure whether an activity would qualify for continuing education credit, check with Laura Johnson, Nebraska Library Commission Continuing Education Coordinator, before the event.

To obtain credit:

If an activity is sponsored by the Nebraska Library Commission or one of the Nebraska Regional Library Systems, then your attendance will be reported to the NLC Continuing Education Coordinator so the credits you've earned can be recorded.

Otherwise, we have no way of knowing you've participated in something unless you tell us.  The best way to do that is by submitting a C.E. Activity Report.  You can check your C.E. record any time to make sure that credits have been recorded.  Just go to the C.E. Record Review.     Participation in a C.E. activity should be reported within 90 days. 

Ways to Earn C.E. Credits

There are many ways to earn continuing education credit for Public Librarian Recertification:

Attending continuing education activities:
The learning activities for which librarians most often earn C.E. credits are workshops, seminars, institutes, conferences, and lectures, either face to face with the instructor or via real-time remote means, where no academic credit is given. These activities should be:

  • aimed at an adult audience.
  • related directly to the participants' jobs in the library (although they need not be strictly library-centric.)
  • organized and preplanned for the purpose of teaching/learning/discussing.
  • offered by or under the auspices of a reputable agency, organization, or institution.
  • be at least 20 minutes long.

Attending teleconferences and webinars:
Library staff can earn continuing education credits for attending teleconferences and webinars.

Viewing video recordings:
Library staffers can earn continuing education credits for viewing video recordings of library-related continuing education programs. Each recording must be at least 20 minutes long. If you view several videos, their lengths are not added together; each is counted separately. (This works to your advantage.)

The Nebraska Library Commission has video recordings available for loan.

  Many of them are listed at Selected Videos Available from the Nebraska Library Commission .

Taking an academic course:
Courses for which academic credit is awarded by an accredited college or university, which can be used toward a degree or for continuing education purposes, are eligible for continuing education credit. These courses must keep librarians abreast of new knowledge and developments within their field, update their basic library-oriented education, enhance their job competence, or lead to specialization in a new area of librarianship.

In order to determine continuing education credit:

  • 1 semester hour of college credit = 15 continuing education credits
  • 1 quarter hour of college credit = 10 continuing education credits
  • 1 CEU credit = 10 hours of continuing education credits
NOTE: No more than 20 credits earned through taking academic courses may be counted toward the 45 credits required for recertification.

Teaching a professional course:
Serving as an instructor for training, courses, workshops, seminars, presentations or conferences for library or library-related communities will earn continuing education credit. Credit hours are given at the rate of 2X the number of hours of the actual instruction and may be used only once for each class, regardless of how many times it is taught.

For example, if you teach a 3 credit-hour workshop, you are eligible for 6 continuing education credits. You would be limited to just 6 hours regardless of how many times you taught this particular workshop. Maximum number of hours received per class is 10.

Before the class, send a note that you will be teaching to Laura. This should tell:

  • The title of the class
  • The date(s), time(s), and place(s) of the class
  • Under whose auspices you are teaching
  • The goals or objectives of the class

After the class, send the roster of all who attended the class.

Professional association leadership activities:
Participating in professional library association activities at a leadership level, such as serving as president of the Nebraska Library Association, or chair of a section, is eligible for continuing education credit. Comparable positions with national associations would also qualify.

NOTE: No more than 10 of the 45 C.E. credits required for recertification may be earned by through professional association activities in any certification period.

To obtain credit:
Send a written note to Laura. This should include:

  • The name of the organization
  • Your position
  • The date(s) of your service

Writing for a publication:
You may receive continuing education credit by writing on a library science-related topic for a book or a chapter thereof, a paper, or an article. A book must be published by a recognized publisher. An article or paper must be published in a publication in the library/information science field and read primarily by those in the profession. Articles written for a library's newsletter are not eligible to earn credit. The maximum number of hours received per published piece is 10.

To obtain credit:
Send a written note to Laura.  This should give:

  • The title of your article/paper/book
  • The publisher and/or journal title, volume, date, and page numbers

Professional reading:
You may earn credits by reading articles from professional journals and writing summaries of them.  Each article read, summarized and reported is worth .5 (1/2) credit.

To report your reading, send an email to Laura.   Either put in the body of the email, or attach a file with:

  1. A  complete  bibliographic citation for each article.  (If you retrieve an article from Wilson Omnifile via NebraskAccess, it will give you a complete citation. In "Record View" click on "cite", on the right side of the screen just below the blue rule.)
  2. A sentence explaining why you chose to read this particular article.
  3. A paragraph or two summarizing the article. Please don't just describe the article, for example: "The author discussed three strategies for improving customer service," but summarize, for example "The author lists three strategies for improving customer service: 1. Acknowledging each customer (saying hello); 2. Offering help (proactive service) and 3. Follow-up."
  4. A paragraph telling how the information in the article will affect how you do your job in the library, or will affect your attitude toward your job.

Each article must be from a library science professional journal and be over two complete pages long. Some journals are: Library Journal, School Library Journal, Computers in Libraries, Library Resources & Technical Services: there are many more.  Articles from newspapers or general interest periodicals are not eligible, even if the subject of an article is library-related.

 

Not all activities are eligible for Continuing Education Credit.

Activities Ineligible for Continuing Education Credit:
To be considered a learning activity for the purposes of continuing education credit, an activity must be planned, coordinated, administered, and evaluated in terms of learning objectives, and designed to keep librarians abreast of new knowledge and developments within their field, update their basic library oriented education, enhance their job competence, or lead to specialization in a new area of librarianship. Among the activities not likely to meet these criteria are:

  • Staff, business, committee, planning, or advisory meetings
  • Training on regular library operations, procedures or general office equipment, such as training in routine use of the local automated system or a photocopier. Training that is not routine, such as when a library automates for the first time or installs a new automated system may qualify
  • Training and orientation of new staff or a new position, or of volunteers
  • Updating current internal manuals and guides or other internal documents
  • Professional association activities which are routine in nature (e.g., serving on the NLA nominating committee)
  • Training on topics not related to library work or directly related to a job in the library. General work-related topics such as stress reduction or retirement planning are usually ineligible.

If you aren't sure whether an activity qualifies for credit, please contact Laura Johnson, Continuing Education Coordinator, before the event.

For more information, contact Laura Johnson.