Building a Community of Training Librarians in French-Speaking Switzerland: How a Collaborative Bottom-Up Approach Reached to a Successful Conference/Workshops Day

This poster presents the outcomes of the first "Journée romande des formateur·trices en compétences informationnelles dans les bibliothèques des hautes écoles" meeting, a bottom-up initiative aimed at bringing together training librarians from French-speaking Switzerland. The event, jointly organized by the li-braries of EPFL and University of Geneva, provided a unique opportunity for more than eighty trainers from different types of higher education institutions. With levels of expertise ranging from aspiring trainers, who have yet to lead their first independ-ent session, to seasoned experts, participants shared experiences, best practices, and common challenges on teaching information literacy skills, thus fostering the creation of a dynamic and collaborative community of practice. The poster will go through the different stages of the success of this journey: from the birth of a concept to the building of an inter-institutional organizing committee supported by stakeholders, to the realization of a day that reaches the target groups. Based on the outcomes and participants’ feedback, the poster will illustrate the cur-rent reflection on the next steps of this moment for a community that wants to meet but also to develop their skills together and face the challenges of librarian trainers. Moreover, it will also showcase how the initiative aimed at encouraging participants to propose and develop topics for workshops without imposed themes, has catered to a wide range of needs and interests. This inter-institutional collaboration among various higher education libraries contributed to a richer and more multifaceted exchanges during the event. Bridging an existing gap in the current offer of such events in Western Switzerland and placing people at the core, the meeting ensured that all attendees – representing a diversity of the public – could benefit from the variety of experiences in different contexts. This strategy not only led to the success of the event in terms of attend-ance and engagement, but also fostered an atmosphere of innovation, providing sus-tainable models and insights for future gatherings and collaborative endeavors. This poster will conclude with the lessons learned, the scalable models of collabora-tion developed, and the long-term impact of this open, participatory model on future library-led community initiatives.