CMLE is one of seven multitype library systems, from across the state of Minnesota. Our mission is to help every library to serve their community members.

We want to celebrate all of our members! We have over 300 library members, across twelve counties in Central Minnesota: school media centers, academic, public, and special libraries (those located in and serving other home institutions).

I have been in libraries across the country, writing them up and sharing their information – so I can say this with absolutely certainty: Every single library has something interesting, something special, or something unique. Sometimes it’s easy to forget that, because you see it every day. But your library, the specific one where you personally work, has at least one or two things that everyone else will want to see.

We invite you now to share some pictures of your library! No need to be fancy – all my photos of libraries have been taken on my cell phone, haphazardly aimed at whatever it I’m looking at.

Take a little tour of your library – and bring the rest of us along! Take a picture of your doorway, then walk inside and take a few more pictures. Shelves! Art! Displays! Circ desk! Study areas! A cool book or two! It doesn’t matter – we will all love to see whatever you have.

Take four, five, ten pictures – whatever works for you. Send them to me in an email (mary@cmle.org), and tell me a little bit about what is in the picture. (“A book our patrons enjoy” or “Student created art” or other description.) Again: no need to be fancy or detailed – just give a ballpark and I’ll take it from there.

Why are we doing this?

• Because we want to celebrate your library! You are doing some great things, and we love it.
• Because everyone else wants to see your library! By far, the most read articles we share are from our members, sharing info about their library. Everyone wants to admire what you are doing, and maybe to share some of your good ideas too.
• Because people love libraries, and it’s good to get that word out there! Knowing more about even a small interesting or good thing in your library can be good publicity for us all.

Do you have questions? Send me an email!

Not sure I actually mean YOU and YOUR LIBRARY? I very, very much want to see a couple of pictures from your library!

It would help me out a lot if you could do this for me. It’s important for us to share this kind of information, and if you can take five or ten minutes to snap some pictures, that will really be helpful in getting this done.

Thank you! And I’m looking forward to hearing from you soon.