Category Archives: Academic

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Communication, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Updates from State Library Services

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CMLE Headquarters will continue to bring you all the library news from around the state. You can sign up for these updates from the State Library Services yourself, or just get them forwarded to you here from CMLE. When you are part of a big and wonderful profession like libraries – you want to know all the things happening here!

Early Childhood Screening Informational Video and Webinar
Early Childhood Screening, offered by all school districts, is a way to determine if young children are on track for meeting developmental milestones. Some families do not take advantage of Early Childhood Screening because they don’t know about it or they have concerns about it. If parents knew more about what screening is and is not, they may be more likely to have their child screened and identify areas for additional focus before kindergarten.

Public librarians can help increase participation in screening by encouraging families to get their children screened between the ages of 3 and the start of kindergarten. The Minnesota Department of Education and community partners teamed up to create a five-minute informational video with basic information about screening for parents and caregivers, thanks to funding from The McKnight Foundation.

To learn how you can help increase families’ awareness of screening and comfort with the process, please join us for a lunch break webinar presented by MDE’s Early Childhood Screening Coordinator, Margo Chresand on Thursday, December 8, noon-12:30 p.m. (Add to your calendar.) Please contact Jen Verbrugge (651-582-8356) with questions or to request a reasonable accommodation to participate in this event. Note: MDE requires a two-weekadvance notice in order to provide the requested accommodation and requires a 48-hour notice in order to cancel a requested accommodation.

Continue reading Updates from State Library Services →

Academic, Check this out:, Communication, Public, School Media Specialist, Services, Special

ALA News: Intellectual Freedom

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share your material!

As library people, our code of ethics pushes us to strongly respect and defend the intellectual freedom of the communities we serve. You can see this commitment across the American Library Association, including at the Office of Intellectual Freedom.

CMLE Headquarters likewise is passionate about this topic, so we are passing on some news from the ALA. We are copying their material here this month so you can see what is going on right now; but you can always go to their site yourself and get familiar with the issues facing us across the profession. You do not need to be an ALA member – this is for all of us in libraries to know and to share.

We are the guardians of free access to information for our communities; it’s not a responsibility to take lightly. Let’s all get familiar with these topics, so we are ready before problems come to our library!

Scroll down to the bottom (or read all the way through!), and consider signing up for the training offered in January: How to Respond to a Security Incident in Your Library. Continue reading ALA News: Intellectual Freedom →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

From Good to Great as a library leader

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Working on our professional development!

If you’ve been keeping up with CMLE’s book groups on Goodreads, the phrase “Good to Great” may ring a bell! That’s because the book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Other’s Don’t” by Jim Collins was our November read in the Librarian Professionals group! We hope that if you read the book, you were able to take away a sense of what helps great leaders and companies function at such a high level.

Library Journal recently posted this article written by librarian and Vice President of the ACRL Steven Bell on why the book can be especially helpful to those in the library world. He discusses how the book is still relevant in today’s library leadership world, but also names additional articles and resources that have continued to build upon Collins’ book.

Bell names a main component that is necessary for achieving greatness – passion! Leaders need to be able to channel their passion for their work in a way that inspires others to follow them and leads their company in the right direction. Bell also gives some suggestions of how to lead successfully in the library world.

If you are interested in developing your leadership skills, CMLE’s Librarian Professionals book group is an easy place to start! Our book for December is The Happiness Project, and we welcome you to join us!

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Discover books about old Yule traditions

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Snow Tracks
What sort of creatures are roaming through the snow in winter?

Interested in reading some winter books that aren’t holiday themed? This article from Book Riot should help you out! The article includes several books that delve into some of the older traditions of the winter season. Daylight is short, and the nights are extra dark and long, so it seems logical that some spooky and mystical traditions exist during the season!

the-old-magic-of-christmas-yuletide-book-cover-linda-raedischOne of the books, The Old Magic of Christmas: Yuletide Traditions for the Darkest Days of the Year even includes cookie recipes and craft ideas alongside it’s description of the enchanted creatures of the season.

 

 

four-seasons-of-mojoThe list also thoughtfully makes a suggestion for your probably stressed-out body with Four Seasons of Mojo: An Herbal Guide to Natural Living that includes techniques to help with winter-related ailments like colds, flu, and depression.

 

legend-of-old-befanaFinally, since it’s likely you will be around some kids at some point during the winter season, you can’t go wrong with Tomie dePaola’s The Legend of Old Befana which tells the traditional Italian story of an old woman and her flight to find the baby Jesus.

 

life-and-adventures-of-santa-clausExtra credit: Not included on the list in the article, but also incorporating enchanted creatures and magical forests (although technically, yes, it is about Santa) is L. Frank Baum’s The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus which I grew up enjoying!

 

 

 

Do you know of any Yule or traditional winter folk books that we should be reading? Tell us in the comments!

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, School Media Specialist, Services

Calling on Academic Librarians! We need your input on student needs!

Are you an academic librarian? We need you!

Do you know an academic librarian? Forward this on!

Maria Burnham is the media specialist at Sauk Rapids-Rice High School. She wants to be sure her students leave school post-secondary ready, a goal of her building and of her district. But what does that really mean for libraries??

We do not have a good sense of what students need to know to be successful when they get to you in an academic library. So we are asking you!

This is a quick survey (same survey in all those links above!), and it should only take you about five minutes to complete.

Maria will collect the responses, and turn it into some material that she can use to help her teachers and students to know what it is they need to know to be successful! We can also share the results with you, and we will be building on this work to reach out to libraries across the CMLE system, and across the state.

We all want students to be ready for their next step after high school; let’s see what we can do to make that happen!

We really want to get input from all types of academic libraries, so your help is really appreciated!! We know you are busy as you wind up your semester; so to thank you CMLE will award a $10 gift card from Amazon.com to a randomly chosen person who completes the entire survey before Dec. 16.

Thank you for your help!