Training reference “Cross Trainees” by committee: A practical solution

Many academic libraries have staffing arrangements where library employees work in more than one library branch or unit. These can be dual assignments or less formal agreements in which employees spend several hours per week away from their home departments. Zimmerman Library reference department, the social sciences, humanities, and education reference unit of the University of New Mexico (UNM) General Library (an ARL library serving over 25,000 students), uses “volunteer” staff from other library departments to help provide reference services as part of a library‐wide cross training program. According to library policy, “Cross training is an arrangement whereby a library employee from one department spends time training and working in another department. Cross training is that time an employee spends in another department or unit of the library learning to perform a task or a group of tasks and includes the time spent performing those tasks after training.” This article discusses a staff‐initiated and committee‐coordinated in‐service training program designed for these reference desk workers. This method is innovative, as library training, as evidenced by the literature, is typically viewed as the responsibility of the supervisor or manager. This training approach may serve as a model for other academic library reference departments requiring in‐house training for similar needs.