Finding a mentor who works well for you can be both challenging and frustrating. Mentor-mentee matching programs are a great idea and work beautifully for some librarians in specific contexts. What happens when you outgrow, mismatch or need specialized or temporal mentoring? How do you understand the scope of your need? How do you get to the “why” behind building this relationship?

In this program, audience members will assess their resources and needs, develop a short list of possible mentors for those needs, identify their personal goals and what they hope to provide a mentor through this relationship. Further, audience members will consider how to build an effective relationship with both accountability and an assessment plan to help both the mentor and mentee understand if goals have been met. Finally, time will be given to ensure audience members consider how best to share the skills and understanding they acquire through this relationship.