Linda W Braun
LEO (a consulting and training organization)
Learning Consultant

Tell us about your experience leading a change in your library and/or in your community.
In my work as a consultant and trainer I regularly work with library staff to help them re-imagine library services, structures, systems, etc. Over the past year I’ve been working with the CA State Library and CA Library Association to re-imagine, through an equity lens, summer services. This includes assisting staff in understanding how to analyze summer services to know the ways in which these services are and are not equitable, supporting staff in advocating for changing a traditional approach to summer services to an equity-based approach, and co-designing tools for library staff to use to implement equitable summer services for youth, families, and communities. The change is happening through building shared understanding of needs and shared understanding of methods to meet those needs.

What is your mentoring philosophy & style?
I believe in a collaborative and co-mentoring approach to this work. That means that a mentee and I will analyze together what the needs are, work on a plan together for better understanding how to meet those needs, and learn from each other in order to build the skills, knowledge, capacity, etc. to achieve success.

What else would you like a leadership mentee to know about you?
I have worked with small and rural library staff throughout the U.S. as a part of the IMLS-funded Future Ready with the Library initiative. Over five years I supported youth staff and administrators – through a community of practice, training, and mentoring – to design and implement community-based workforce development services for middle schoolers. Through this work I gained insight into the opportunities and challenges that rural and small library staff face as they work to move their services and communities forward.

Areas of expertise
, , , Leading change in the library or the community, Equity initiative in the library, community, and/or profession, , , Evaluation of library projects or services,