As we near the end of 2016, there are plenty “Best Books of the Year” lists out there, which are great! But if you’ve exhausted your new literature, and are looking to add some variety (specifically, in the area of Children’s Literature), check out School Library Journal’s selection of the most significant children’s literature of the 20th century! It could be a great opportunity to find a gift, or just revisit some old favorites.
In response to member requests, CMLE is going to set up a regular monthly gathering. This will be an opportunity for members from all types of library and from across the system to get together casually, to chat, to have lunch or dinner, and to just get a chance to talk to each other in person. (And if you want to talk about non-library things, that’s fine too! This is your chance to just hang out with library colleagues; so discuss whatever you want!)
Click to tell us what time (lunch/dinner) and day (Monday – Friday) would work best for you.
We anticipate these will happen monthly, and will create a schedule for the first six months of 2017 to share with you.
While you can not know your schedule in detail for the next six months, we ask that you make some predictions about days and times that you think you would be most likely to be able to join colleagues for an hour or two. We will move the location around, so people from across the system can all have a chance at a shorter drive!
Pick your day and time below. And if you have suggestions on some public places to meet – think coffee, food, possibly adult beverages, and space for us to spread out – leave them below, or email them to us at admin@cmle.org!
Academic librarians – here is a chance for you to submit your work to the LACUNY Institute conference, happening May 12, 2017.
Do you have thoughts about the future? Do you want to share them with your colleagues? Consider submitting a proposal!
If you have not submitted a conference proposal before, or just want someone to discuss ideas or look at a draft – let us know! At CMLE Headquarters, we are here to help!
At CMLE Headquarters we are working to assemble all kinds of library information you can use as you reach out to your communities. We have plans for all kinds of things, and are already working to add more material to our website so it will be useful to you. This collection of information will be one of the benefits of belonging to the CMLE system; so you can let us know what kind of information would be helpful to you!
One project we are starting is collecting training material on using online resources.We want to have this all in one handy spot, so when you need material on a resource you do not know, or when someone new joins a library, or you want to give instructions to patrons who are remote, nobody has to recreate things from scratch that already exist.
Have you used, or created, some training material that really worked for your patrons? We would love it if you shared it with us, so we could share it around the system! Do you have links to material already out there on the Web? Send them to us!
We are looking for training materials from all types of libraries across the system. An advantage to being part of a multi-type system is that we have similar needs, and approach them in different ways. That kind of perspective can be helpful to everyone else, as we work to improve our training for patrons!
You can send ideas, Office documents of all sorts, links to good training, names of people who know good things about our online resources, and anything else you have to share to us: admin@cmle.org.
One of the main things we hear from our members is that they work alone, and that they feel alone in a lot of the things they do in their libraries. As we found in the needs assessment, most of you are solos or working in a library with fewer than five people. And it can be tough to be alone!
At CMLE Headquarters, we want to help you connect to your colleagues. Having someone else to talk about ideas with you, to share in the issues you are all facing, and to ask questions from someone else who knows about the situations you are in can be really helpful!
So we have established a variety of online forums for you to talk, to share ideas, and to celebrate the assorted successes you have in your library! Need to ask for book recommendations? Do it here! Want an example of a useful lesson plan? Ask here! Have a charming story of an adorable patron? Share it here!
Groups available so far: (Feel free to join any group of interest to you)
Special Libraries (this is the group to join for discussions of all types of special libraries, museums, and/or archives)
Diversity in Libraries As information professionals in libraries, we are all charged with creating diversity in the staff, materials, programs, and services we provide to our communities. It can be a challenge to do this well, so we will gather here to share ideas, ask questions, and get support from our colleagues!
Library Leadership Leading is hard, so let’s get together here and talk about skills we need, and issues we all face. We can trade suggestions, share training opportunities, and ask questions of other people who are also working to lead well in their libraries!
Library Planning All libraries make different kinds of plans: strategic, tactical, project. Trying to guess the future can be a challenge, and it works better when we work together! Discuss ideas, solicit templates from others, and ask questions about planning here.
Reference work Working in Reference – online or in person – can be a challenge to anyone! Here is the place to discuss issues you encounter, challenges you face, or just to ask questions of your colleagues. We work better when we work together!
General Library Discussion Do you have things you want to talk about from your library? Share them here! Ask oddball questions, share stories of triumphs and tragedies, and generally discuss all the things we see every day in the library!
We will periodically post messages to the groups with information we find that might be relevant only to a segment of our members, but for the most part these are just for you guys to discuss issues facing you and to network with colleagues!
Do you have other topics you would like to us to set up a discussion area?? Just let us know! We are here to help our libraries, and to provide some forums for communication and sharing across the system!
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
