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Many new librarians feel that they lack the
skills and confidence to give truly
effective presentations. Library and
information studies prepare you for many of
the jobs in the library world - cataloguing,
book selection, database searching - but
there is rarely much emphasis on
presentation and training skills.
The odds are high that you will need to
develop these skills for most jobs, and you
will need to develop them fully. Whether you
are expected to train a group of library
users in the use of a database, or stand up
at a departmental meeting to present your
team’s project to the rest of your work
group, you need to be able to speak
confidently and effectively in front of
other people. This means acquiring or
improving presentation skills, either on the
job or in other areas of your life (such as
volunteer work, community work, further
study and training).
One of the major barriers to doing this,
though, is a natural reluctance to work on
presentation skills. Many people feel
nervous and uncomfortable when they have to
speak in front of an audience; several
studies cite "glossophobia" (the fear of
speaking in public) as one of the major
anxieties experienced by people in all
professions. (Try typing "public speaking
and fear" into Amazon and see how many
titles come up, including a book called
How to conquer the fear of public speaking
and other coronary threats.) But if you
want to be successful as a librarian - and
certainly if you want any kind of leadership
or management role - you need to learn how
to give excellent presentations and training
sessions.
Here are some simple steps that you can
take:
Step 1: acknowledge what you are already
doing
Presentation and training skills are an
extension of your communication skills:
speaking, listening, responding to people,
answering questions, giving information.
Remember that these skills are on a
continuum: if you can speak effectively to a
small number of people (a sports team, a
work group, a committee) then you can learn
to speak well in front of a larger
audience.
Step 2: learn from other speakers
Look out for the good presenters in your
organization - the speakers who behave
naturally and easily when they are giving a
presentation. Watch them; it’s as if they’re
talking to a group of friends rather than to
an audience of strangers. They smile; they
make eye contact; they move easily; they use
gestures confidently. Remember that these
people don't have any magic tricks that they
rely on; they have learned how to do
this. It's an acquired skill.
At the same time, you can learn about what
not to do. There are (unfortunately)
plenty of ineffective speakers out there:
people who mumble, avoid eye contact with
their audience, or rely on technological
aids like Power Point instead of speaking
well. Look at Marie Wallace's entertaining
LLRX.com article "Twelve Sure Fire Ways to
Torpedo Your Presentations" for more ideas
on this. If a good speaker makes you feel
discouraged ("I'll never be able to do
that"), a bad speaker might inspire you ("I
can do better than this")!
Step 3: take people on tours
This is a good exercise for shy or nervous
speakers. One of the most daunting things
about speaking in front of an audience is
that everyone is watching you –
looking at you, focusing on you, waiting to
hear you speak. But if you are taking a
group of people on a tour – around your
library, your workplace, your city’s museum,
your local community centre – then they have
a lot of other things to look at, as well as
you! Giving a tour is a great
confidence-booster for a speaker, because it
enables you to practise all of your
presentation skills without being the centre
of attention. Another advantage is that you
can move around freely, always a good way of
dissipating nervous energy. And you don’t
have to worry about forgetting where you are
in your talk because your surroundings are
the visual cues and prompts that keep you
going. (“Right, now we’re in the 800s in the
library. I need to talk about the literature
collection”).
Step 4: give a demonstration using a
computer
Again, this is less demanding than just
standing up and speaking because you are not
the sole focus of the audience’s attention;
they’re also watching what’s happening on
the computer screen. Librarians have plenty
of opportunities to ease themselves into
presenting and training skills in this way:
showing a group of library users how to use
a catalogue, a database, a search engine on
the web.
Step 5: get some training
Once you have gained some confidence by
practising your presentation skills, a
one-day workshop or a series of sessions
with a professional speaker will make an
enormous difference. A qualified trainer
will help you with your clarity of speech,
tone, breathing and gestures. He’ll also be
able to give you tips on preparing your
presentation material (ideas about
structure, language use and style).
You will have the opportunity to give a
speech or presentation and get feedback from
your teacher and your audience. Since all of
the audience members are also course
participants, they have to stand up and
speak, too; so the whole thing is like a
support group for speakers. You’re all
learning together.
You can find “public speaking” workshops
through training organizations, educational
institutions, or your employer’s Staff
Development programme. There are also
specific organizations like Toastmasters,
Penguin and Rostrum (in England, New Zealand
and Australia).
Step 6: speak for 2
minutes
As soon as you can do this after your
training, give a 2-minute talk to a group of
people. Find somewhere familiar and
comfortable to do this: a regular staff
meeting? a committee meeting at your local
sports club or community group? Prepare what
you’re going to say, rehearse it beforehand
and deliver it on the day.
Step 7: speak for 5
minutes
Repeat Step 6, but for a longer period of
time. In this step, make sure that you stand
up in front of your audience, especially if
you remained seated during your 2-minute
talk. It’s fine to be sitting down to give a
short, informal talk, but you also need to
feel what it’s like being on your feet.
Apart from anything else, you breathe more
easily and gain more vocal power this way!
And after you’ve done this short
presentation, think carefully about how you
went. Did you make eye contact comfortably?
Were you happy with your introduction and
your conclusion? What would you do
differently next time?
Step 8: give a half-hour presentation
Learn from your mistakes and successes with
this -- what works ("They understood the
point I was making at the beginning, they
asked good questions about that afterwards")
and what doesn't work ("I hadn't prepared
well enough, I went overtime").
Step 9: do it again
All presentations, and all presenters, get
better with experience. Do it again and
again and again.
Step 10: do some reading
Your own experience will be your best
teacher, but there are many other resources
out there for you as well. I've included
some of them in my bibliography.
Bibliography
Belben, C. (2003) Making a gift of
yourself: preparing for successful
conference presentations. Teacher
Librarian, 31 (1) , 12-15.
Humes, J. (1991 ) The language of
leadership. Melbourne : Business
Library.
Malouf, D. (1988) How to create and
deliver a dynamic presentation.
Brookvale, N.S.W : Simon & Schuster
Australia.
Statz, S. (2003) Public Speaking
Handbook for Librarians and Information
Professionals. Jefferson, N.C. :
McFarland.
Walters, L. (1993) Secrets of successful
speakers : how you can motivate, captivate,
and persuade. New York : McGraw-Hill.
Marie Wallace writes excellent articles on
the many facets of "how to give
presentations", in her "Guide on the side"
column in LLRX.com (a free Web journal for
"legal, library, IT/IS, marketing and
administrative professionals ")
-http://www.llrx.com/
About the Author:
Jennifer Osborn has followed
her own advice and worked through this
ten-step programme for improving
presentation skills. She is a Reference
Librarian and Staff Development Co-ordinator
at the University of Adelaide Library in
South Australia, where she gives
presentations and training sessions on a
day-to-day basis. She is also a member of
Rostrum S.A.
Article published August
2004http://www.liscareer.com/osborn_presentation.htm |
