A Beginner’s Guide to Failure

A Beginner's Guide to Failure teaches library workers how to embrace and even celebrate failure. Instead of viewing failure as evidence of something lacking, this short course endeavors to help individuals better integrate failure as part of being fully human, taking creative risks, and growing critical skills and mindsets for learning organizations. In other words, despite the common misconception, failure is the rule, not the exception, and more failure actually leads to better ideas, creative solutions, and more productive workplaces! This workshop draws on teachings in emotional intelligence, psychology, philosophy, and culture. The goals and objectives for this workshop are to:

• Encourage critical engagement and exploration of the concept of failure in our lives, especially, but not exclusively, our work lives
• Experiment with new ways of failing productively, including design-thinking and prototyping approaches
• Explore stories of failure in library settings, normalizing the experience of failure
• Help workers orient themselves and develop connections to fellow workers in a shared spirit of celebrating failure

 About the Presenter: 

A.M. Alpin is the Head of Digital Scholarship Services and Assistant Coordinator of Faculty Affairs at New York University. She holds an MFA in Film and Media Arts from Temple University and an MS in Information Sciences from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She teaches workshops at NYU, the Made in NY Media Lab, and other institutions. In addition to producing countless failures, she is the past recipient of the Sundance Institute's Sheila C. Johnson Creative Producing Fellowship, the American Library Association's Advocacy & Innovation in Library History Award, and the Association of College & Research Libraries' Outstanding Professional Development Award. Her creative work has been supported by the Sundance Institute, the Independent Filmmaker Project, the Austin Film Society, the Southern Humanities Media Fund, and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation.

Thursday, April 24, 2025, 10:00 am – 2:00 pm. Lunch included.   

IN-PERSON at the Capital District Library Council, 800 Troy-Schenectady Rd, Latham, NY 12110 

Free, lunch included. Registration is required. Register at: https://cdlc.libcal.com/event/14060157

For more information, contact Susan D’Entremont at [email protected] or 518-512-8196