News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
Fentress County Library Director Donna Conatser is now state certified in public library management.
Conatser just completed the state program that required participants to finish what had been a three year program in one year. She said the weekly and monthly requirements totaled about 160 hours.
Conatser said she enjoyed learning about the county budget process, fire safety, and programming. To graduate, Conatser said she had to complete a capstone project.
“The book was V is for Volunteer,” Conatser said. “It’s a Tennessee alphabet book. So I talked about the book and the crafts that we use with it. And how we give children facts about Tennessee that I get from the Tennessee dot gov website.”
Conatser said she isn’t done with continuing education. She said she has been looking at the site that the state shared with her. She said she is going to get on there and try some new things.
Conatser said there are core competencies available online. And she said she was very interested in the Electronic Library program.
“We promote that at the library, so I’d like to learn more about it,” Conatser said.
Conatser said she wants to take the Youth Services course and then she plans to look further into the online offerings to find her next challenge.
“It’s not all library related,” Conatser said. “So I need to see which ones we can really use.”
Conatser is one of 21 graduates from the 2023 Public Library Management Institute program. Each participant presented a capstone project on a professional topic of their choice to a panel of colleagues and Library & Archives staff in order to graduate.
