TY - JOUR AU - Quinney, Kayla L. AU - Smith, Sara D. AU - Galbraith, Quinn PY - 2010/12/01 Y2 - 2024/03/28 TI - Bridging the Gap: Self-Directed Staff Technology Training JF - Information Technology and Libraries JA - ITAL VL - 29 IS - 4 SE - Articles DO - 10.6017/ital.v29i4.3131 UR - https://ital.corejournals.org/index.php/ital/article/view/3131 SP - 205-213 AB - <p>Undergraduates, as members of the Millennial Generation,&nbsp;are proficient in Web 2.0 technology and expect to apply&nbsp;these technologies to their coursework—including scholarly research. To remain relevant, academic libraries need&nbsp;to provide the technology that student patrons expect,&nbsp;and academic librarians need to learn and use these technologies themselves. Because leaders at the Harold B. Lee&nbsp;Library of Brigham Young University (HBLL) perceived a&nbsp;gap in technology use between students and their staff and&nbsp;faculty, they developed and implemented the Technology&nbsp;Challenge, a self-directed technology training program&nbsp;that rewarded employees for exploring technology daily.&nbsp;The purpose of this paper is to examine the Technology&nbsp;Challenge through an analysis of results of surveys given&nbsp;to participants before and after the Technology Challenge&nbsp;was implemented. The program will also be evaluated in&nbsp;terms of the adult learning theories of andragogy and selfdirected learning. HBLL found that a self-directed approach&nbsp;fosters technology skills that librarians need to best serve&nbsp;students. In addition, it promotes lifelong learning habits to keep abreast of emerging technologies. This paper&nbsp;offers some insights and methods that could be applied&nbsp;in other libraries, the most valuable of which is the use of&nbsp;self-directed and andragogical training methods to help&nbsp;academic libraries better integrate modern technologies.</p> ER -