Liz Milewicz, far left, head of digital scholarship and production services, was among the Perkins Library staff members who organized training sessions this summer for employees on project management. The weekly sessions were structured around tutorials available through online training provider lynda.com. Photo by Duke University Photography.

Durham, NC - When a group of Duke library staff wanted to learn more about project management, they decided to start with lynda.

Video tutorials available through the online training provider lynda.com, that is. The group of about 30 employees set up informal weekly sessions structured around lynda.com's "Project Management Fundamentals" tutorials. Each week, participants watched a tutorial, used a combination of quizzes and worksheets to review the material, and shared their own tips and tricks.

"We really hit a nerve with a topic a lot of people feel they want to get better at," said Jean Ferguson, head of research services for Perkins Library, who helped to organize the sessions with her colleagues. "We had talked about bringing someone in to do a half-day training, but this worked out really well for us."

Available free through Duke's Office of Information Technology (OIT), lynda.com offers free access to 80,000 video tutorials on hundreds of technology topics and soft skills such as professional networking. New courses are added every week. To log in to the training tutorials, go to the OIT website.

Beginning this month, Duke has upgraded its license agreement with lynda.com. The university-wide license, called lyndaCampus, enables Duke staff, faculty and students to earn professional course completion certificates; track progress with personal profiles; and bookmark specific content. Tutorials are also available on a mobile device, and there is no limit on the number of concurrent users who can access the site from Duke.

"Users will now have a more personalized experience, so they can add tutorials to a queue, bookmark and view their recent activity," said Christine Vucinich, OIT's technical education and outreach coordinator. "In addition to the technology courses, there are some great business courses and documentaries that are worth checking out."

Among the most popular topics for Duke users, Vucinich said: Microsoft Excel, Final Cut Pro and SharePoint.

Debbie Suggs, a senior IT analyst in OIT, said lynda.com is a major resource in her own professional development.

"In these times of tight budgets, I look to the training available on lynda.com to keep my existing skills current and expand my knowledge in new directions. I've learned about a wide range of topics including Drupal, WordPress, MySQL, SharePoint and Microsoft Office," Suggs said. "I'm able to play the lessons at faster speeds so I can cover a large amount of material in a shorter time frame. And I love the fact that lynda.com keeps its courses up-to-date as it continues to provide new content."

 As library staff discovered, the tutorials also are valuable as a shared resource for the Duke community.

"We figured, we were all going to look at lynda.com, so why not do it as a group?" Ferguson said. "That way we can talk about the process –- and we're building a support network for each other."

To learn more about lynda.com at Duke and to log in to the training tutorials, go to the OIT website.