Self-Paced Online Training
Create a thriving workplace culture with expertly crafted professional development and leadership training that they can access anytime and anywhere. No scheduling required.
Share eResource training, deliver staff learning on essential topics, and promote a positive community and workplace culture with your own private online academies.
With an endless to-do list, it’s hard to find time to sit down for long trainings that don’t reflect your reality.
Find practical, digestible library staff training and development programs on the Niche Academy marketplace.
Topics around race, gender, and sexuality can be difficult, but are essential to delivering great patron experiences.
Deliver digestible training in essential areas through the Niche Academy platform.
You’re understaffed and overwhelmed.
Recruit and retain the best people with training that helps you create a powerfully inclusive workplace culture.
You’re tasked with keeping library visits up and circulation up, but struggling to identify how to do so.
Create exceptional customer experiences and drive e-Resource circulation up without struggling to find the time and methods by training your staff to serve patrons in the best way.
Empower staff, reduce churn, and increase library usage (without creating extra legwork) with your own private online academy. Niche Academy’s customizable and expertly crafted tutorials, learner reports, and online instruction tools will positively impact your library workplace and your community.
Create a thriving workplace culture with expertly crafted professional development and leadership training that they can access anytime and anywhere. No scheduling required.
Help more people discover and learn to use your e-Resources with automatically updated tutorials right on your website. On-demand, interactive tutorials Increase awareness and circulation.
Remove participation barriers for patrons who can’t make it to library programs offering online versions of storytime, lectures, classes, and more.
Use Niche Academy’s proven curriculum and platform to train all public-facing staff in essential skills like trauma-informed services, de-escalation techniques, professionalism, and work ethic.
Automatically and effortlessly track virtual visits, and learner progress. Seamlessly integrate Niche Academy into your existing online presence so you can ensure maximum impact.
Our stats are going strong on the patron side. Patrons seem to love it and I’m seeing some increase in usage on the products in our academy. We have finally found a product that will help both staff and patrons learn about what we have to offer them. Niche Academy is the best piece of software we have purchased in years!
Eileen Kontrovitz, Head of IT, Ouachita Parish Public Library
Niche Academy was really easy to install. I mean, we've had zero problems technology wise. So, that side has been a relief. We use Niche when we add a new resource. So, it's like we're a team, Niche Academy and me with the patrons, a team up.
Bethany Ronnberg, eResource Librarian, Scottsdale Public Library
No. A Niche Academy subscription includes unlimited professional support. See the answer above on what’s included in the price.
Each library needs to determine for itself the value of increasing circulation numbers and program participation rates relative to other priorities for limited library funds. We do make an effort to keep the cost of Niche Academy very low relative to the value we provide.
Over the last 6 years, we have increased pricing for new customers commensurate with the increasing value of the service we provide.
It is our policy, however, not to raise prices for our existing customers. Libraries are renewed at their original subscription price. Libraries who subscribe at our current pricing will pay less than libraries who start later on. This policy is one factor contributing to a renewal rate of over 95%.
Niche Academy support specialists can be reached by phone, by email, or through questions submitted within the platform itself. In addition to the live support, Niche Academy provides a searchable knowledge base and a collection of self-paced help tutorials covering basic administrative tasks and the process for tutorial creation.
Niche Academy provides live technical support during business hours. There is no additional charge levied for Niche Academy support and there are no support tiers. Small customers get the same thoughtful attention as everyone else.
All aspects of initial onboarding are included in the Niche Academy support offering including:
We serve libraries of every known shape, size, location, and budget. We serve small libraries with just a few staff as well as the largest systems with many hundreds of employees. We serve libraries that are almost entirely staffed by part timers and volunteers as well as libraries with highly specialized professionals. We serve libraries located on inner city streets as well as on rural routes. We serve libraries with thriving and secure budgets as well as those facing serious cuts.
We have built the platform to add value for libraries that can create unique and extensive in-house training, but also get results as a plug-in solution that can work with near zero administrative overhead.
Depending on the scope of the change, Niche Academy can turn around an update within a few days to a few weeks. Because we actively watch for new and upcoming changes, we’re often able to make the updates before most of our customers are even aware of the change. In some notable cases, we’ve made updates even before the vendor sales staff knew the changes were coming.
If your state library’s or your consortium's subscription includes a subscription for each local library, you won’t need a separate subscription. If your state library’s subscription does not include a subscription for each local library, you’ll be able to access training that the state library provides, but you won’t have the ability to do any of following:
The most significant gains in program participation and eResource usage come when widgets are available within your local library’s website and patrons are connecting to programs created by local librarians.
Yes. Niche Academy is compliant with the WCAG 2.1 standard at the AA level. This is something we work hard to maintain as we continuously update the platform. If you spot anything that’s slipped through our testing, please let us know. A thorough enumeration of our compliance level is available in the Niche Academy Accessibility Conformance Report.
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