Macalester College is hosting the 7th Annual Library Technology Conference on March 19-20th, in St. Paul, MN. This year will focus on changing technology in libraries and how they are affecting patron interactions and resources management. Additional information and conference registration can be found at http://libtechconf.org/
The second annual Minnesota Archives Symposium will be held on Friday, November 15th, Making Connections: Advocacy, Awareness and Archives. The symposium is sponsored by Hennepin County Library Special Collections and the Twin Cities Archives Round Table. This free event will be held in the Mary and David Doty Board Room (2nd floor) at Central Public Library in Minneapolis, MN from 1:00 – 5:00 PM.
Contact TCART at tcartmn@gmail.com or Elissah Becknell at elissah.becknell@minneapolis.edu for additional information.
Click here to register.
Are you currently reading a book that you want others to know about? Or, do you already write book reviews for various reasons? Might you consider sharing your reviews with others in Central Minnesota?
CMLE Board Member, Maria Burnham, Sauk Rapids-Rice Library Media Specialist, suggested including book reviews in our current communication streams. We thought this was a wonderful idea!
Our Goal: Over the next six months, we would like to like to have 20 book reviews starting this November going through April of next year.
We’ll need your help!!!
TIP: If you are already reviewing books and blogging about them for your students, it would be easy to send us a copy for this series.
Do you consider yourself to be a history buff? Would SixDegrees, Friendster and MySpace come to mind when you think about social media? In Trivial Pursuit, the 20th Anniversary Edition, it would probably fall under the category for “Innovations.”
Take a moment and breeze through Matt Smith’s quick history lesson about start-ups that built the foundation to what we refer to today as “social media.” In his article, October 2013, Smith gives a nod to early innovations such as the BBS (Bulletin Board System) and IRC (Internet Relay Chat.) These technologies predated the World Wide Web in the mid-90’s; opening a market for other platforms which ultimately bolstering sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest. Smith predicts, “While Facebook is king, there’s still room for niche alternatives, particularly those that emphasis images or video rather than an infinitely updating news feed.” Click here to read the full article, Social Media: Did it really start with Facebook? [Geek History Lesson], MakeUseof.
Tip: CMLE often highlights ways teacher librarians can incorporate forms of social media into classroom and instructional processes. Here are two additional free resources for you to consider;
Many librarians teach formally and informally patrons/students how to conduct research. Dawn Casey-Rowe, a high school teacher and prominent writer for Edudemic, targets best practices for educators. This October, Casey-Rowe published an article titled, 10 Web Resources to Help Teach About Primary Sources. In this post, she talks about her experience with students after assigning a research paper pertaining to current events. She stated, “There is such an overload of information. Students need to be able to identify and decode sources, then make a decision as to what they mean in terms of causes and consequences.” Sound familiar? Casey-Rowe goes on to list resources that you might also find helpful, regardless of the researcher’s age.
One of the most common stumbling blocks in research is not understanding the best practices to conduct a search. In a related article, Holly Clark talks about the new “digital divide”as it relates to students’ ability to effectively find and process information while conducting searches. Here is a link to Clark’s full article, “Do Your Students Know How to Search?” also posted on Edudemic’s site (October 2013.)