Are you looking for a place to share ideas and ask questions? Can’t find your colleagues in the sea of social media? Then head on over to the ITEM Web Forums! A re-incarnation of the old MEMO forums, the new ones are a Google Plus Community. You can even narrow your search by region, job postings, or events. Join the fun and share away!
Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) is an outstanding suite of databases available to all Minnesotans. Join us to learn more about ELM, the specialized databases available, which database is best for what, and more. Learn with the experts how to search, save, and share your results. Take home tips on how to teach the databases to users.
This day-long training event will give you the chance to attend multiple sessions tailored to your interests and experience. Computers available, but feel free to bring your own laptop or tablet to personalize your learning.
All levels of experience welcome! Novice or advanced searcher, there will something for you.
| What: | ELM Expo |
| When: | Friday, November 6, 2015 from 8:30am to 4pm |
| Where: | Anoka-Hennepin Staff Development Center 2727 North Ferry Street Anoka, MN 55303 |
| Cost: | $30 includes morning snack, lunch, and handouts |
| Who Should Attend: | Public, academic, school, and special librarians. School librarians (K-12) are urged to come as a team with History Day Teachers, Guidance Counselors, English Teachers, STEM Teachers, and anyone who uses ELM or wants to use ELM in libraries or classrooms. CEUs available. |
Please note: Enrollment is limited to the first 100 people.
Brought to you by CMLE, Metronet, and Minitex.
CMLE has scholarships for this event for registration, mileage, and/or to subsidize the cost of your employer hiring a substitute worker. Recipients would be able to apply for other scholarships in the future; this wouldn’t ‘count’ against a future award. Contact other multitypes for scholarships in those regions.
Its always nice to hear about a local company doing well beyond the borders of Minnesota. Local publisher, Graywolf Press, is doing just that. A recent article by Vulture talked about the small publisher, its roots, its struggles, and its success. “Publishing just over 30 books a year, Graywolf has had authors win four NBCC awards, a National Book Award, two Pulitzers, and a Nobel Prize — all in the last six years.” As the article says, that’s no Penguin Random House, but Graywolf has “harnessed and to some extent generated a revolution in nonfiction.”
Have you read any Graywolf books? What did you think?
Image credit: https://unsplash.com/ (Josh Felise), licensed under CC0 1.0
RetirementsImage credit: https://unsplash.com/ (William Ivan), licensed under CC0 1.0
In a new survey from Pew Research Center, the dichotomy of public interest in additional library services and the numbers of Americans visiting libraries edging downward over the past three years, would make anyone’s head spin. It seems people want more from their library, but once again, the numbers indicate that fewer of them are using the library. This continues to be somewhat of a conundrum, one that librarians should all think about. What can be done?
There are many aspects of this report worthy of thought, and we encourage you to peruse the full report, while we ponder the following report kernel here…
Of note, in the survey, “85% of Americans say that libraries should “definitely” coordinate with schools in providing resources for children.” This kind of collaboration sounds good, but what does it mean from a practical standpoint? Are K-12 curriculum directors (if there are any) interested in working with public librarians who are trying to provide useful childrens resources? Are public libraries funded adequately to ensure each child has a public library card? Probably not! But parents could get involved in a big way. It already takes a parent’s permission to give the child a card, so maybe a promotion to parents by the schools could move this work forward. In the CMLE region, we just did a needs assessment so we can share the following data in this area: