Continuing Professional Development 

ALIA Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Scheme

Invest in your profession with the ALIA CPD Scheme.

If you are a Personal Professional Member of ALIA, the ALIA CPD Scheme is here to support your ongoing professional learning.

All new Associate, Library Technician or Allied Field Members are automatically signed up to the ALIA CPD scheme with access to the user-friendly CPD logbook. The CPD logbook allows you to track your CPD hours, reflect on your learnings and identify the next skills and resources you need to drive your professional performance.

CPD Milestones

After the successful completion of your first year of CPD (minimum 30 hours) you are acknowledged as a Certified Professional (CP) Member and are able to use the post nominal AALIA (CP), ALIATec (CP) or ALIA Allied Field (CP) [as appropriate].

The minimum requirements of the scheme are:

  • 30 hours per CPD year (1 July - 30 June)
  • 120 hours over three consecutive years

Certified Professionals

After three year’s compliance, you attain the Certified Professional Certificate and are a Certified Professional Member. 

Distinguished Certified Professionals

At the conclusion of five complete, consecutive CPD years Certified Professional Members can Apply here for Distinguished Certified Professional status.

Current DCP Listing

Specialisations

If you want to develop or demonstrate specialised knowledge in the library and information industry, you can add an ALIA CPD Scheme specialisation. In the CPD logbook, simply choose from the drop-down list of specialisations and then add the relevant competencies for each activity.  After the successful completion of 30 hours (and one CPD year) of the specialisation you are eligible to use the post nominal relevant to your specialisation. For example if you are an Associate Member and you complete the data specialisation your postnominals would be AALIA (CP) Data.  To achieve your Certified Professional Certificate with a specialisation a minimum of six competencies over three years need to be completed.

There are currently ten specialisations offered to ALIA Personal Professional Members. For more information and to download the competencies and skills audits linked below, please make sure you are logged into the Member Portal.

Professional Recognition Program (PRP)

If you are a Student or General Member of ALIA the Proficiency Recognition Program (PRP) is a professional learning framework designed to advance core library and information services knowledge, and also to encourage members to fully utilise their skills and experience during their studies and or in their library and information services setting.

The scheme is focused on four practice areas:

  • Know your library and information service context
  • Know your library and information service structure and community
  • Collections in practice
  • Engaging with digital technologies, literacies, and learning

You can access the PRP through the My CPD tab in your profile in the Member Centre.

Looking for CPD activities and resources?

ALIA and ALIA Groups run conferences, training, seminars and more throughout the year. Here's how you can get involved:

  • Check out what's on and register here.
  • We send all ALIA members the monthly PD Postings e-newsletter which is full of free CPD activities or check out 100+ ideas for your CPD.
  • If you are a early and mid-career ALIA Member, the ALIA Mentoring Scheme supports a structured mentoring relationship to create professional partnerships and gives you access to the wisdom and expertise of LIS professionals.

A good way to maximise your CPD is to complete learning reflections and we make this easy within the Members Centre of the website. You might find the following resources helpful to prompt your learning reflections: