CMLE has over 200 member libraries, and we know they are all doing great work!! (Really! We’ve visited a bunch of them to admire it, and it’s always so cool!!)
A big part of our mission is to support our members. We want to get as much of the administrative/policy/back-stage kinds of things done for them as a group as possible. Library staffers are best utilized spending most of their time with their community (face to face or online), not working on the tedious stuff. We can’t take away all of that (sorry!), but we want to see what we can do as a system to make it easier for our library people to get away from that and spend more time with patrons.
One thing we are working on is a “Hello! Welcome to Your New Job In A School Media Center!” handbook. (The name is, obviously, still a work in progress. Send suggestions!)
We have some ideas, and have been gathering thoughts from school library people – but we want to know what YOU know! What do you do each day? What kinds of things do you wish you knew your first day, week, month? What suggestions do you have to pass on to your colleagues in school libraries??
Please feel free to send this request (appeal for help!) to any school library people you know! The more ideas we get, the better our end product will be.
(And yes: we are talking about CMLE members, because they are our primary mission – but anything we produce will be available for any school library person to use! We are strong believers in the idea that libraries are all stronger when we work together!!)
Leave a comment below! Email us at admin @ cmle.org! Tweet to us at @CMLELibs! Call us at 320-257-1933!
We would really love to hear from you – no matter what you do in any type of school library! The more info we get now, the better we are able to help!!
Thanks!!
The thing that took me the longest to adjust to as a school media specialist is how chaotic the day can be. You’ll have a to-do list for the day and while your day will sometimes be insanely busy you’ll look at that same list at the end of the day without anything crossed off! You’ll have accomplished many things that day, but not the things you thought you would. Not all days are like this, but many are. I wish I had known this before I started my job. It would have made the adjustment easier!
This is a great reminder and probably comforting to newbies! Yes: you did a ton of great stuff, even though it was entirely different great stuff from your plans. It’s okay to just go with that!