All posts by Angie

Conference, Guest Blogger

CMLE Scholarship: MLA 2017

This guest post was written by Violet Fox, Metadata Librarian at the College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University.

The theme for the 2017 Minnesota Library Association’s Annual Conference was “Radical Librarianship,” and I couldn’t have been more excited! I was excited to hear from library workers not only about the great things that libraries do for our users, but also how we as a profession should strive to recognize and address our shortcomings.

I was delighted to be able to present alongside some of my favorite library folks: Hannah Buckland (Leech Lake Tribal College), Tina Gross (St. Cloud State University), and Jessica Schomberg (Minnesota State University, Mankato). In our session, we talked about how centralization in cataloging often prevents libraries from responding flexibly to the needs of their users, and encouraged all librarians to argue for the value of local control in our standards and vocabularies in order to provide respectful and responsive metadata.

A number of MLA 2017 presentations gave me ample material to reflect on. Standouts included Safiya Umoja Noble’s session on how increasing reliance on opaque algorithms results in upholding societal inequity and oppression, as well as an interesting session from librarians at Dakota County Library (Christie Schultz and Lori Veldhuis) on their valuable project to make their world language collection more accessible and attractive to patrons.

Alhough I don’t do usability testing or user surveying in my job, the most exciting session I attended was “UX is Social Change: the Feminist Impact of User Experience Work” by librarians at Metropolitan State University (Christine Larson, Jennifer DeJonghe) and Hennepin County Library (Amy Luedtke, Tony Hirt). The presenters talked about how they use feminist principles within their work, in part by centering patron experiences and recognizing that patrons have knowledge and experience that we don’t. They also discussed their efforts to recruit UX participants intentionally, and acknowledged that it can be uncomfortable to have one’s design ideas critiqued. I very much appreciated the presenters’ unapologetic embrace of “disciplined empathy” in their work, and their presentation encouraged me to find ways to do the same in my own day-to-day work.

I’m grateful for CMLE’s support to attend MLA 2017 and I’d like to encourage Minnesota library colleagues to attend and present at next year’s conference!

Do you want to attend a conference or take part in some other professional development? Apply for a scholarship from CMLE today!

Communication

Learning About Library Associations: Art Libraries Society of North America

Library science is an enormous field, home to every interest you could imagine! This means that there are many organizations out there for you to join, in order to connect with other people who share your professional interests.

So even if you work alone in your library, there are other people out there doing work similar to yours! Each week we will highlight a different library association for you to learn more about, and depending on your work, potentially join! You can also check out our page dedicated to Library Associations.

This week we are exploring the Art Libraries Society of North America! This organization is “a dynamic organization of over 1,000 individuals devoted to fostering excellence in art and design librarianship and image management.” Their annual conference called “Out of Bounds” is coming up in February and will be in New York City!

Society members are “architecture and art librarians, visual resources professionals, artists, curators, educators, publishers, students, and others throughout North America interested in visual arts information.” Find out how to join the Society and read about membership benefits (like awards, publications, and career resources) on their page here.

Their website features a variety of multimedia and technology reviews, like this one of the exhibition Bruegel: Unseen Masterpieces. Their site also has a Learning Portal which includes webinar archives and virtual conference sessions. The content is Open Access and accessible through online registration. Finally, you can check out any upcoming events on their Event Calendar!

 

Conference

ITEM 2017 Recap

On Friday, Oct. 6th I was so excited to attend my first ITEM conference in Brooklyn Park! I was looking forward to a day of learning, networking with school media and tech educators and hearing from some local authors. I was able to do that and more!

The conference began with a delicious breakfast and a presentation from the author and Macalester professor Duchess Harris. She talked about her personal connection to her book Hidden Human Computers which is about how “dozens of African American women worked for NASA as expert mathematicians from the 1940s to the 1960s and almost no one knows about it.” Her grandmother was Miriam Daniel Mann and “was one of the first black female computers employed by NASA’s predecessor,the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA).” Harris discusses this in more detail on this episode of the Historically Black podcast.

Then it was time for some chatting before heading off to our first sessions! I was able to hear from Tea Rozman-Clark, Executive Director of the organization Green Card Voices, and the amazing work they do with young immigrants. We learned about their behind-the-scenes recording processes and got to watch how they conducted a day of interviewing students from a remote location that just happened to be St. Cloud State University!
It was great to see the books that have been created that feature the stories of the students interviewed. You can purchase Green Card Youth Voices St. Paul, Minneapolis, or Fargo editions here.

Then we had to rush quickly off to the next session, one that I was excited about: learning about Creating Future Ready Media Centers!

This presentation from media specialist Amy Carney was definitely inspiring (she’s renovated two media centers in the last three years!) and full of great information that we’re happy to pass along to our members, especially since we know some of you may be working on redesigning or updating your media center! You can download a PDF of her presentation here.

We had some free time before the next round of sessions to check out the vendors, browse the bookstore (so many good choices!), and chat with each other. Then it was time for more learning! I got to hear from Outfront MN as they presented LGBTQ 101. We learned definitions and terms regarding individuals in that community and also ways to make interactions with students or our patrons more inclusive and respectful.

Next, it was time for lunch, entering drawings for books, and watching CMLE Board Member Maria Burnham present awards!

And the fun didn’t stop there! After awards were presented, we got to hear from a bunch of awesome local authors and illlustrators! They all answered some unconventional questions and we got to hear about the books they’ve created.

One of the authors on the panel was Lisa Bullard, author of the book Turn Left at the Cow, which Mary recently reviewed in our series CMLE Reads Across Minnesota! I was pretty excited to see her in person!

The afternoon sessions were very interesting as well. I attended a presentation from Dawn Nelson called “When ALL Means ALL: Partnership and Programming for Students with Special Needs.” This can definitely be a challenge for our members and I hoped to get some good resources to share. Dawn talked about her experiences working with students with physical special needs, like making her media center more wheelchair friendly, and also shared her experiences working with students on the autism spectrum. Check out her presentation here for suggestions and useful links!

The final session I attended was a presentation from Maria Burnham, who told us about how she encourages and works to create a culture of reading with both staff and students at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. She had some great suggestions, like keeping your list of books that you are currently reading visible as an easy conversation starter, or to take part in a school-wide book challenge. Make sure to check out her presentation here!

I had a great time attending ITEM and can’t wait for next year! Hope to see you there! 🙂

CMLE, Communication, General

Next Monday! CMLE’s fall social event!

We know it’s getting to be that tough time of year when days get shorter, temps get chilly, and you are so busy you don’t know how you will do it all! Come relieve some stress with CMLE! We will be enjoying dinner and each other’s company next Monday, Oct. 23rd at Old Chicago in St. Cloud at 5:30pm.

Join us for library conversation and a chance to meet your colleagues from different types of libraries! We have had so much fun at our past social events and we can’t wait to see you there!

RSVP below:

Books

Booked for the Evening event

Are you a school, children’s or teen librarian looking to connect with others in your field and get some great book suggestions at the same time? Definitely check out Booked for the Evening, an event at St. Kate’s in St. Paul. Attendees will be able to “hear from expert panelists as they review the best new literature for kids and teens.”

The event is only $20 and takes place Monday, November 13, 6:00–8:45 p.m. in the Rauenhorst Ballroom.

The event features a “panel of expert librarians, who are graduates of the St. Kate’s master in library and information science (MLIS) program, will highlight books for primary, intermediate, and young adult readers. Don’t miss this opportunity to hear about the best in recent literature for youth.”

Read the schedule, meet the experts, and register for this fun event here!