Check it Out:

We have things For You, Your Library, and Your Community!

We know our members are closed now, and working to provide service to their community members online. And we are here to help you!

We have a variety of resources available for you. Take all of these and use them in your work, put the links onto your website, share them with your community in your social media or newsletters. And if you need more individual assistance, email us at admin@cmle.org.

This is your chance to show your community how valuable you are to them. There are a lot of services you can continue to provide to people who are at home, bored, and in need of the work a library can do.

We may be in a social isolation period for weeks – you do not want to let your library community members go without you for that long.

Here are a few things you can use and share right now:

  • Special CMLE Postcards: We will be sending out special postcards to ANYONE who signs up. (They should be here to send out in the next few days.) Do you want a cheerful postcard? Sign up! Sign up your kids, parents, neighbors, friends, students – anyone who could use a little burst of happiness in their day.
  • What Are We Doing Today?: we are setting up a new page every day with activities kids (and others!) can do at home
  • Library Life Online page: we are posting information about working at home here, as well as a lot of suggestions for library services and links to material you can share
  • Reading With Libraries: this is our book group podcast. We look at a new genre each week, have genre-related beverages, and chat about books. You can link to our website to stream episodes, and people can subscribe in any podcast app
  • Armchair Travel to Minnesota State Parks: this is our Goodreads book challenge game. We look at every state park in Minnesota, and give a related book prompt. People find a book to read that meets the prompt, and can record it on our page. We are also recording a quick weekly podcast to share book ideas for each park: Browsing Books.
  • Linking Our Libraries podcast: This is of more interest to our library staff members, and other library staffers. Each episode we look at a new library skill, and chat with a Guest Host who shares their experience with the skill.
  • CMLE Training: We have some training classes here, available FREE to all while schools are closed; go through the short classes and get an hour of PD/CE credit.
  • Weekly newsletter: We will continue sharing our content and resources for you daily, and will collect all the articles into a Friday newsletter as usual. Subscribe here, and it will drop in your email every week!

What else do you need? What would be helpful? What are you missing in your library work to share online?

We have several years worth of content on the site, so search for material you might need on topics important to you. And let us know what else we can do to help you to provide great service to your community!