All posts by Mary Jordan

General, Resources, Services

Involved in cataloging or tech services? Share your ideas!

 

ALCTS Exchange

 

The ALCTS Exchange is extending its call for virtual poster presentations until March 17, 2017

The ALCTS Exchange virtual poster session offers the opportunity to share and promote work, research, and ideas across the ALCTS Exchange’s topical themes: new roles and workflows, creative problem solving, creating connections with user communities, and building skills to prepare for the future. We are especially interested in highlighting work that addresses the intersections of collections and technical services and diversity and inclusion.

The ALCTS Exchange will include two poster presentation opportunities:

  • A poster lightning round session on May 11, wherein each presenter will have five minutes to speak, followed by a Q&A discussion forum.
  • A virtual poster collection and discussion forum available to Exchange registrants. File formats are not limited to static documents and presenters are encouraged submit videos and other types of media files. If you would like to submit a recorded video for the virtual poster collection, the ALCTS office will be available to assist with your recording.

Continue reading Involved in cataloging or tech services? Share your ideas! →

Communication, Resources

Why is federal government data disappearing?

Censored section of Green Illusions by Ozzie Zehner

Your library probably uses federal data to help your patrons with their research and information needs. You definitely have access to an enormous amount of information, generally presumed to be reliable and valid, produced by an enormous range of federal agencies – all paid for with tax dollars and belonging to all of us.

Libraries of all types have relied on being able to provide this information to our communities – health information from the CDC, planning visits to our national parks, NASA ideas on space travel, photos from your state in the National Archives, knowing what shots to get before traveling from the Dept of Health and Human Services, information on worker’s rights from the Dept of Labor, studies done on pesticides and industrial waste in the water and soil in your neighborhood from the EPA, plans for bridge safety from the Dept of Transportation, George Carlin’s FBI file, raising chickens in your back yard from the Dept of Agriculture, and so much more.

But some of this information is disappearing, and for libraries – committed as a profession to providing and sharing information freely – this is a serious problem. In addition to the ethical challenges of hiding and censoring information, this reduces the material we can share with our communities – always a problem for us!! Continue reading Why is federal government data disappearing? →

CMLE, School Media Specialist, Visits

Touring Kimball Elementary school library

For someone who is not regularly around small kids, it’s always a treat to visit an elementary school library – you see just how much thought goes into making everything size-appropriate for the patrons! That kind of usability is important in all libraries, but in a library like this it is clearly on display and fun to see.

This library is a fun open-concept design! No walls cut them off from the rest of the school, so everything feels very open and flexible. They are recessed below the hallways around them, so there is privacy and a sense of specific place; and I love this feeling of being connected to the daily activities around them.

Continuing the idea of design making the library connect with the kid patrons, this art on the wall was just lovely. Kids could see this and be really inspired to read books – but also to just dream about great things!

Continue reading Touring Kimball Elementary school library →

Advocacy, CMLE

Minnesota Library Legislative Day 2017!

Minnesota’s Library Legislative Day was Wednesday, Feb 22; and it was a great event!! If you have not been to one, please consider attending next year – it is so great to be in a group of library people all talking about the wonderful things libraries do. And legislators generally want to hear from us, because they like to know money is being well spent in their communities. So, it’s fun for everyone!!

This is a brief report on some of the activities of the day, to give other newbies an idea of what is like to participate in this event. We had a LOT of CMLE library people and Board members attending this year!! It was great to see people there, talking about all the great things in their libraries and library service across the state.

Thank you so much to everyone who was able to attend. And if you were not – you can always email, call, or write to your legislator! And thank you to the organizers of this event, who worked so hard to get everything together for it to be such a positive experience!

The “day” started on Tuesday evening, as several of us gathered at the Rice Street library in St Paul. We had the first legislative briefing, and had time to ask questions, share ideas on strategies, and to meet library people in person. Continue reading Minnesota Library Legislative Day 2017! →

CMLE

CMLE Geocaching Travel Bugs are on the move!

One of our travel bugs has had an adventure, and was left in a geocache in the Myrtle Beach State Park!

Wanting to escape the Minnesota winters, it landed in this beautiful park. The cache gets a lot of traffic, as it is located in a very busy visitors center on the beach. There is a long pier into the ocean, filled with people fishing. They have a boardwalk to escort people through the dunes area, and several hiking trails through the Carolina pine woods. It is a lovely area!

The Library Travel Bug has already been picked up from this location, and is hopefully headed to some other great location!! We will keep you updated on its progress, as well as the progress of our other Travel Bugs!