by Julie Bolding, Minnesota Chapter, Transportation Division

The South Dakota Department of Transportation first hired me as a temporary librarian to catalog its technical library collection. When that job was done, I moved on to a permanent management analyst position, where I wrote, edited and organized policy documents. I occasionally wrote and edited our newsletter and press releases as well. Learning how to use the industry standard program for desktop publishing, Adobe InDesign, was a great career help. I started by writing and designing an organizational “fact book” and moved on to create the agency’s first public annual report in decades.

Inexpensive continuing education in my rural location is difficult to obtain. A big help in learning new software programs has been online Ed 2 Go classes offered through my local university extension. I took the Adobe InDesign and Adobe Dreamweaver courses. Courses are part time, six weeks long and are non-college credit (groovy certificate suitable for framing). The instructors were experts in their fields and often published. Interaction with other students and the teacher was through an electronic bulletin board.

I can’t recommend these enough for librarians wishing to learn to program computers or learn a specific software program.  The courses are well organized, teaching quality is high, and the price is modest, just $84. If you’re looking to add skills to be future ready, this is one way to go. You can check out the Ed 2 Go course catalog at: www.ed2go.com.

Julie Bolding joined the Special Libraries Association News Division while at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign from 1992-1994. She now is a member of the Transportation Division. In her off time in the spring and summer, she manages the Capital City Farmers Market in Pierre, South Dakota. In the winter, she drives through the barren expanses of South Dakota, North Dakota and southwestern Minnesota to her son’s high school hockey games.