ARL launched the Leadership and Career Development Program in 1997. Over the course of five LCDP offerings, 100 librarians have completed the program and a large percentage of them have either been promoted within their libraries or have taken new positions with significantly expanded responsibility.
In 2005, ARL conducted an evaluation of the program’s effectiveness. The feedback confirmed the need for this program and recommended that its instructional design be tied directly to ARL’s recently articulated strategic directions:
The goal of the newly designed LCDP is two-fold: (1) to provide meaningful exposure to and experience with the strategic issues that are shaping the future of research libraries and (2) to prepare professionals of color for increasingly demanding leadership roles in ARL libraries.