Professional Development 

THE NEW CPD YEAR STARTS ON 1 JULY 2026

YOU WILL HAVE UNTIL 31 DECEMBER TO LOG AND REFLECT ON YOUR ACTIVITIES IN THE CURRENT CPD YEAR (1/7/25 - 30/6/26) TO GAIN OR MAINTAIN YOUR CERTIFIED PROFESSIONAL STATUS

ALIA Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Scheme

Keep your skills and knowledge up to date and have your efforts acknowledged with the ALIA CPD Scheme.

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

All Associate, Library Technician, Allied Field, Student and General 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 what you've learned and identify the next skills and resources you need to drive your professional performance.

Participants who log and reflect on 30 hours or more of CPD in a CPD year (1 July – 30 June) receive an annually updated certificate, acknowledging CPD hours and years in the scheme.

Professional members can achieve Certified Professional (CP) Status after one year of 30 hours, and Distinguished Certified Professional status after five years in the scheme and 150 hours. 

Download CPD Handbook

Specialisations

CPD specialisations are not compulsory, but an added extra to include if relevant. They can be undertaken if you are already working in a related field but are also useful if you are interested in or aspire to work in that field.  

To achieve the specialisation goals, you will need to fulfill the 30 hour annual requirement for each specialisation separately.  We recommend undertaking one specialisation at a time. 

There are ten different specialisations, each with thirteen competencies aligned to the ALIA Skills, Knowledge and Ethics Framework for the Library and Information Services Workforce (The Framework) that activities can be matched to.

Decide on which specialisation is of most interesting and purposeful for your circumstances, and then to include it, simply select it from the dropdown menu and then continue to apply it to all future entries where applicable.

For ALIA professional members, after meeting the requirements for a full CPD year with a specialisation, the name of the specialisation will appear on your Certified Professional Certificate and also in your postnominal. Student and general members are able to access the specialisation skills audits and competency documents related to enhance skills and knowledge development.

Available specialisations include: