All posts by Mary Jordan

CMLE, General

Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas!

The-Chinamen's-game-board
let’s play!

I know some of our CMLE members are already circulating games in your libraries; and it’s a topic brought up fairly often when we are talking about materials and services to reach out to communities.

Games are great, and very engaging ways to encourage patrons to come to the library! They can be somewhat troublesome to circulate, as everyone wants to be sure they have the materials to share with the next patron – and small pieces or cards can be easy to lose. You can usually buy replacements for missing parts to games, but it is another step to consider when you are including them in your collection development plan.

There were some ideas being shared online about circulating games, so we are sharing them here, to help you think about your own circ policies! Continue reading Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas! →

CMLE, General

CMLE is celebrating Mardi Gras!

Angie decorated our cake! Drop by to enjoy a slice before it’s all gone!

CMLE members – we have a King Cake here in the office, and invite you to drop by to try a piece! It may go fast, so we can’t guarantee it will last; but if you miss the cake, we also have Valentine’s Day candy canes to distribute. At CMLE Headquarters, we are always ready to celebrate a holiday!!

If you are not familiar with the history of King Cakes as part of the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, Wikipedia has some good information. And NPR wrote a story about their discovery of King Cakes: “Is that a Plastic Baby Jesus in my Cake?”

From our bakery’s information on the history of King Cakes:

“Today in New Orleans, the King Cake is an oval-shaped braided coffee cake which is decorated with cinnamon sugar in the official Mardi Gras colors – gold (for power), green (faith), and purple (justice) – and contains a tiny plastic baby that has replaced the coin used in medieval times. The person who gets the slice of cake with the baby in it must host the next party. At come parties, they are crowned king or queen. [Mary’s Note: more traditionally, the person finding the baby buys the next cake!] The cake, a gift shared by family, friends, and revelers alike, is eaten between the Twelfth Night and FatTuesday, the beginning of Lent. However, the cake often begins appearing during Christmas.”

 

Academic, General, Special

Coming Soon: Love Your Data Week!

BigData 2267x1146 white
Love Your Data week is fast approaching on February 13-17, 2017! Please tell us if you plan to participate and we will list your institution’s name on the site so we can continue to grow the community of data lovers.

This year’s theme is emphasizing data quality for researchers at any stage in their career:

Blue heart for Monday Monday: Defining Data Quality
Green heart for Tuesday Tuesday: Documenting, Describing, Defining
Yellow heart for Wednesday Wednesday: Good Data Examples
Orange heart for Thursday Thursday: Finding the Right Data
Red heart for Friday Friday: Rescuing Unloved Data

Visit our website (https://loveyourdata.wordpress.com/) for content, resources, and activities for each day.  And join the conversation on Twitter #LYD17 or #loveyourdata!

  Continue reading Coming Soon: Love Your Data Week! →

Communication, General

2016 – 2017 CALA Best Book Award Call for Nomination

http://www.cala-web.org/

We just passed the Chinese New Year, so Chinese literature may be fresh in your mind! (Happy year of the Rooster, everyone!) Have you read an interesting book about China? The Chinese American Library Association (CALA) would like to hear about it!

From CALA:

The annual CALA Best Book Award recognizes outstanding books, published in English or Chinese, which exhibit excellence in addressing topics about China and written by Chinese authors (or Chinese descent). The Award is to raise awareness of these topics and authors in North America.

The Committee will select nominated books in the following categories: Fiction, Nonfiction, Juvenile/Young adult (age 12-18), and Children (under age 12). Each award author(s) will receive an award certificate and be presented at CALA Annual Award Banquet in June 2017. The winners will be announced before early bird registration deadline for 2017 ALA Annual conference. Continue reading 2016 – 2017 CALA Best Book Award Call for Nomination →

Communication, General

Call for Volunteer Judges (in person and virtual) 2017 PR Xchange Awards Competition

CMLE members: we encourage you to attend conferences (virtual and in person), so you can hang out with people who do thing things you do in libraries. There are many conferences across Minnesota that would be interesting to you, and the American Library Association (ALA) Annual Conference is coming to our (general) area this June! If you have not been to one yet – picture more than 25,000 library people, from every corner of the library world, with every job and every title possible in libraries, all gathered together to learn, network, and to have fun!

If you have experience in marketing, graphic design, or communications, and can get together virtually on April 4th, this would be a fun introduction to the conference!

Continue reading Call for Volunteer Judges (in person and virtual) 2017 PR Xchange Awards Competition →