The Skills Assessment in the original A4E application has driven the training programme.  The identification of existing and missing skills amongst library staff of Senior Officer Grades and above is still highly relevant.

Skills assessment

Existing skills:	Missing Skills:
Knowledge of mainstream literature	Knowledge of non-mainstream literature
Good provision of information for marginalised groups	Integration of literature from marginalised groups in mainstream audience development
Good approach to customer care	Strategies for adding value to customer service
Good knowledge of community networks	Knowledge of literature networks
Responding to articulated demands	How to research new needs
Managing books	Managing how books are used
TCT for information	ICT for imagination
Confident relationships with under-15s and over-40s	Skills in working with young adults
Good at providing familar authors for readers	Skills in opening up wider choices for readers
Good at running core services	Originating new ideas for development
Competent at responding to press enquiries	Managing press and publicity relationships
Working within allocated budgets	Fundraising for specific projects
Using quantitative performance measures	Using qualitative performance measures

At the half-way point in the project, progress has been made on all the identified skills gaps.  Training in Year One took the form of monthly core training days for all the librarians; in Year Two the emphasis has shifted to action training in smaller project groups.  The impact of the training programme is being evaluated by the University of Central England, see Evaluation below.

In addition to core and project training days, each authority is entitled to 1 day's consultancy from Opening the Book in each of the 3 years.  Some of these have been used for further training in areas such as audience development and promoting poetry.  Many have been used to open up strategic issues with the involvement of senior managers.