Dateline: Monday, Jan 30, 2017

Place: Old Chicago restaurant, St Cloud

Purpose: CMLE members gathering for food, fun, and library talk

Verdict: Complete success!!

Yes indeed, we had a good time at the first in a series of CMLE gatherings! One of the most frequent member requests is for more opportunities to gather together informally, to share ideas, ask questions, and just have time to talk together.  And this happy group was the result!

This is the first in a series of opportunities for food and library-related fun. (You can see that they all look pretty happy!) It was great to get a chance to catch up with members I knew, members whose libraries I have had the pleasure of visiting, and to meet new-to-me people! In my experience, library people always have a good time together- we have so much to talk about!! And it doesn’t really matter what type or size of library you are from; we all have similar issues. (I once took a bus ride at an ALA conference, and chatted intently with a librarian from Lithuania; we both worked in communities with big digital divides, and both struggled to get more money and resources to help our patrons! Library people all have more in common that we do that distinguishes our work!)

And look at this sign near our table – it’s like they knew library people would be there!

It was great to have a group of people to talk with, and I had a calzone that was quite tasty! So, let’s do this again!! And if you couldn’t make this one, hopefully you will make the next one!

We want to meet up about every six weeks. So our next dinner gathering will tentatively be in the week of March 13.

Now, we are looking for a location! You can reply in the comments below with a suggestion, fill out the comment form, or just send us an email. We want to move these around, so everyone across our system has an opportunity to join up without driving too far; so if you can make some suggestions that would take us to some other locations, that will be great!

And remember: we really want to come visit YOUR library!! We are working on contacting everyone; but if you want us to come admire your library, or chat about things in your library, you can contact us any time on our website.

Looking forward to chatting with you all!!