Tag Archives: Community

CMLE, Communication

We support Niko!

Japanese Red Cross Nagoya Daini hospital

We told you last week about a fundraiser for a member of our library community: Niko! His dad, Neil Vig, works at Great River public library system. Niko and his family are battling his leukemia, and could use your help!

You can attend the fundraiser, and all the info is in our article. If you want to just make a donation, you can contact Mark Kolbinger:  mkolbinger@isd726.org.

And we have had requests for a link to provide donations. Here is the GoFundMe account Niko’s family set up. Feel free to donate even a couple of dollars if you have them, to help offset some of the horrendous costs that big illnesses cause for families.

Library people are strong by working together. This is a great opportunity for you to be part of a community.


Books, Children's services

Books beyond libraries

You love libraries. We love libraries. Really – everyone should love libraries! As a multitype system, it is so easy to see the great value libraries provide to their overlapping communities. It’s great!

We also encourage literacy and reading across our communities! Here is a quick look at some other organizations you can help to connect kids in your community with more books.

 

Download this flyer to give to your patrons, to easily and quickly share this information! Or add it to your website, so people can check it for themselves.

  • Reach Out and Read, Minnesota:

    “Reach Out and Read gives young children a foundation for success by incorporating books into pediatric care and encouraging families to read aloud together. The best time to shape a child’s future is in the first five years, a critical window of rapid brain development that does not occur at any other time. Children who hear fewer words during early childhood start school developmentally behind their peers, and may never catch up.With unparalleled access to families with young children, Reach Out and Read medical providers give books to children at well-child visits from infancy until they start school. More importantly, they encourage families to read aloud and engage with their infants, toddlers and preschoolers every day.”

    By incorporating books into pediatric primary care and encouraging families to read aloud together, Reach Out and Read Minnesota gives young children a critical foundation for success.

    We encourage early literacy by:
    ● Training pediatricians, family physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants to use books during well-child exams to promote early language and literacy development. With age-appropriate tips and encouragement about book-sharing, storytelling, and reading aloud, parents are empowered to become their child’s first teacher.
    ● Providing new, developmentally and culturally appropriate books for children to take home and share over and over and over again.
    ●Partnering with multiple vendors to negotiate deep discounts to give our clinics access to quality books in English, Spanish, Somali, Hmong, Karen, Burmese, and even Ojibwe.
    ●Helping clinics create literacy-rich waiting areas and exam rooms.
    ● Recruiting, supporting, and guiding clinics to implement an intervention that extensive research has shown doubles the likelihood that parents will read to their children, improves children’s language ability, and reduces delays in language ability in at-risk children.

  • Reading is Fundamental (RIF):

    “Reading Is Fundamental is committed to a literate America by inspiring a passion for reading among all children, providing quality content to make an impact, and engaging communities in the solution to give every child the fundamentals for success. Headquartered in Washington DC, RIF is the nation’s largest children’s literacy non-profit and creates impact in communities in all 50 states.””RIF develops content and resources that produce measurable results. Through RIF’s various programs and partnerships, we provide opportunities for children and their families to experience the life-changing impact of reading. Reading is the fundamental building block to all life’s essential skills. We invite you to explore our program options for bringing books and literacy resources to children at home, in the classroom, and in the community.”

      • Books For Ownership
      • Read For Success
      • Literacy Central
      • Literacy Central App

    • Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library:

      “Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library is a book gifting program that mails free, high-quality books to children from birth until they begin school, no matter their family’s income.After launching in 1995, the program grew quickly. First books were only distributed to children living in Sevier County, Tennessee where Dolly grew up. It became such a success that in 2000 a national replication effort was underway. By 2003, Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library had mailed one million books. It would prove to be the first of many millions of books sent to children around the world.

      Dolly’s home state of Tennessee pledged to pursue statewide coverage in 2004 and global expansion was on the horizon. After the United States, the program launched in Canada in 2006 followed by the United Kingdom in 2007 and Australia joined in 2013.”

      Want to help sign up patrons? Find their program office right here!

Advocacy, Programs, Public

How public libraries help build healthy communities

People icon(Article from Brookings.edu, By Marcela Cabello and Stuart M Butler)

“In a previous blog post, we’ve noted the importance of “third places” in strengthening communities – meaning those places that are neither one’s home (first place) nor workspace (second place). A range of such third places, from churches to beauty salons, play an important role in community building. They are the informal spaces that are often mainstays in a neighborhood, places where both random and intentional in-person relationships are made.

Several things are necessary for a particular place to play this role. Location and accessibility are important, of course. But so are trust and a sense of neutrality; they are usually the keys to success, whether the place is a house of worship, a family-owned diner, or a barbershop.

As the earlier piece explained, public spaces and buildings can become important and successful third places. And one particularly interesting, emerging and important example is the public library.
Continue reading How public libraries help build healthy communities →

Writing

Share your ideas: Challenging the “Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None” Librarian Syndrome

Whist-type trick

We are passing on this call for your contributions! Remember: if you want to write something up, but are not sure where to start, we can help you from CMLE Headquarters!

Call for proposals–EXTENDED

Advances in Library Administration and Organization
Challenging the “Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None” Librarian Syndrome
Publication due 2018

Series Editor: Samantha Hines, Peninsula College

Volume Editor: George J. Fowler, Old Dominion University

Librarianship may be said to be facing an identity crisis. It may also be said that librarianship has been facing an identity crisis since it was proposed as a profession. With the advent of technology that lowers barriers to the access of information, the mission of a library has become indistinct.  This volume will explore the current purpose of librarianship and libraries, how we become “Masters of our Domains”, develop expertise in various elements of the profession, and how we extend outward into our communities.

Continue reading Share your ideas: Challenging the “Jacks of All Trades but Masters of None” Librarian Syndrome →

Advocacy, Public

Mayor Craig Petersen: Library Hero!

 

The Mayor of Logan, UT is a supporter of libraries, and he’s not afraid to put his money where his mouth is – literally!

“Mayor Craig Petersen proposed Friday that he will work without pay for the remainder of the year and donate his salary to the Library Building Fund.

Last month, Petersen recommended to the City Council that a new library and community center be built at the site of the old Emporium building, 55 N. Main St.

New libraries aren’t cheap. The city is looking at a $12 million price tag, but most of that would be paid through existing resources without raising taxes. The remaining $2.8 million would be raised from private donations, including about $93,000 from the mayor’s salary and benefits.

“I want Logan to move forward with a library and a community center Logan can be proud of. And we just don’t have that right now,” Petersen said.”

In a time where too many politicians do not see enough value in libraries to fund them (#SaveIMLS!), it is great to see a Mayor who understands the value a good library will bring to his community!

At CMLE Headquarters, we nominate Mayor Petersen as our latest Library Hero, and we join his community in thanking him for his work on behalf of libraries!