Power Library - Pennsylvania's Electronic Library Pennsylvania's Electronic Library PA's
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POWER Academy is hosted through the PA Staff Academy.  You can also access the POWER Academy from the main For Librarians page via the POWER Academy link on the right side bar.

Please note: To complete a training, you must have a Niche account. Staff without a public library specific domain (most school and academic libraries, Gmail, Hotmail, yahoo etc.), will be asked to email the administrator for access. Those requests should go to RA-EDTraining@pa.gov.  Be sure to send the request from the email you will be using for your Niche account and use subject “PA Staff Academy Access”.

Once in PA Library Staff Academy, locate the POWER Academy category (all the way at the bottom) and find a tutorial that interests you.  All tutorials are grouped by POWER Library service type and include:

Access Pennsylvania/SHAREit
E-Resources
PA Photos and Documents
Chat with a Librarian
POWER Library Basics

Topics range from:

• • • Access Pennsylvania/SHARE it training for ILL staff
    • Chat with a Librarian/LibAnswers participant training
    • PA Photos and Documents/Islandora participant training
    • Recordings of past POWER Library webinars
    • E-Resources training topics like:
      • Authentication how-to by library type
      • Primary Sources in POWER Library
      • Career and Job Resources in POWER Library
      • E-Resources for Frontline Staff
      • Short and concise tutorials on individual e-resources
      • New tutorials added monthly!

Simply view the tutorial and complete a short poll and viewing verification.  Upon completion, a customized continuing education certificate PDF will be sent to you.  Continuing education credits are earned in 15-minute increments through POWER Academy and the amount earned will depend on the length of the tutorial.

POWER participants have expressed a strong need for training opportunities in bite-sized chunks that can be completed on their own schedules and in their own buildings. To that end, the training courses available in POWER Academy were created for library staff to glean useful, usable information about POWER Library resources. This model can meet the requirements for CE credit; however, it doesn’t meet the requirements for teacher librarians to earn Act 48 credit. Live, in-person trainings are scheduled for Fall 2023 and will be comprised of trainings through which teacher librarians can earn Act 48 credit.