The Booksellers Association of the United Kingdom & Ireland Limited

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The BA Learning Skills Hub is available for free to all full Booksellers Association members.

 

How to access the BA Learning Skills Hub:
- Visit the BA Learning Skills Hub
- Set up your bookshop profile by entering your name and email address and password (please keep a note of your password)
- Enter the code​ provided by the Booksellers Association. Please email [email protected] to receive the code
- Read the Terms & Conditions and tick 'I agree to the Terms & Conditions'
- Click register
- Once you have entered the code and activated your account you will arrive at Skills Hub Learner Dashboard
- After you've successfully registered on the platform, please use your login details to gain access to the Skills Hub

Watch a short video on how to access the BA Learning Skills Hub:


What is the BA Learning Skills Hub?

The BA Learning Skills Hub is a one-stop learning and development platform providing a wealth of resources for BA members. The platform currently offers 160 learning modules, with more planned for 2025. Much of the content is provided by booksellers and formats used include guides, videos, podcasts, and tutorials. 

Popular topics covered include stock management and returns; staff recruitment and retention; how to mount effective window displays; and running author events and book festivals. 

The Skills Hub launched in spring 2022 and has proved itself to be invaluable for booksellers, with content being regularly added and updated. 

The Skills Hub has been developed in partnership with the Independent Publishers Guild (IPG), with software from Thought Industries. the world’s leading educational software company, 

Why use the BA Learning Skills Hub?
The purpose of the BA Learning Skills Hub is to provide what bookshop owners—and their booksellers—need in order to be better bookshops and run effective businesses. It's the go-to place for information, advice and inspiration for all booksellers. 

The Skills Hub includes practical guides, video recordings of the BA's conferences and events, articles, courses, and podcasts. 

Sign up to the Skills Hub for advice on how to write effective emails, manage the workload, do a stock take, host and run a book club, create images with Canva, write a business plan, and more. 

Looking for tips on how to make the most of the BA's events, campaigns and projects? On the Skills Hub, booksellers will have access to practical guides for Independent Bookshop Week, London Book Fair, World Book Day, Booktime magazine, Bookshop Day, the Christmas Books catalogue, and more. 

New topics are added to the platform every week, in a variety of formats and the BA keeps members up to date with developments on The Booksellers Network Facebook Group and the BA Learning Skills Hub Newsletter.
 
The BA works with booksellers to ensure we are providing the right topics in the right format.

If there's a subject that you would find useful that isn't currently listed on the Skills Hub, or if you have any questions, please email Sheila O’Reilly