CMLE Headquarters is working to provide everyone in our system with all kinds of training to help you hone your skills in this every-changing profession! We maintain a Continuing Education calendar on our website, we offer regular in-person and online training sessions, and we will direct you toward the many other valuable opportunities available to you.
Many CMLE libraries, of all types, provide services to rural areas. This webinar, from WebJunction, can help you to think through your services in a way that will be beneficial to your community members.
There is no cost to attend, and materials will be available after the webinar. So sign up now, and discover some additional tools for reaching out to your rural community!
A webinar presented in collaboration with ARSL outlining the steps of an engaged planning process, to align library capabilities with community needs and aspirations.
Your community needs the library, and planning for the future of your library begins with understanding the community and their aspirations. Once you understand what your rural community wants and needs, you can assess how the library can help them. In this webinar, understand the important steps of this engaged planning process, including internal assessment, data collection and analysis, trustee involvement, and community conversations. Learn what it means for your library to “turn outward” to secure its place at the heart of your community.
Last week, Angie and I visited the St. Cloud Public Library. As you could guess, this library is filled with all kinds of great things for their patrons, and for patrons across the Great River Library System! We have a few things below, but as is true with any library, we encourage you to go visit for yourself to really appreciate everything our CMLE libraries have to offer. We will be setting up some group visits for members to visit other CMLE libraries, so we can have time to connect and to see some of these great things in person!
Wall-E lives!
This was a very exciting part of our behind-the-scenes tour! I love the automated systems in libraries that can free up some staff time from the repetitive tasks, and let them spend more time helping patrons more directly. In the back of the picture, to the right, you can see where books come in from the return slot at the Circ desk. Books can also be returned outside from a car, and travel underground to pop up here where they are sorted by area into these bins.
so many books – it’s library paradise!
This is just one corner of one “backstage” areas in this library, which should give you some perspective on just how huge the whole operation is here! Books are sorted for processing to various departments and destinations, including sending to other branches, to libraries around the state, to the Friends of the Library sale, or weeding. Great River is a net library lender in the state of Minnesota, second only to the Hennepin County Library while not having nearly the budget or population size. The busy staff here who are doing all this work behind the scenes to serve patrons are an great example of the work that needs to happen to make libraries successful, but that patrons rarely even know is part of our service!
decals make everything better
You can see that commitment to good service continuing in the staff area of the Children’s department, with decals from prior summer reading programs. They are re-purposed back here after they are done out front for the patrons – just another way to keep the idea of service at the forefront of everything that happens here! And it makes the staff areas feel more fun, which is always good in a workplace.
The old Carnegie Library!
This is a picture of the original Carnegie library in St Cloud! It’s always so great to see these, as it is something else that connects communities across the country (and the world) with the libraries all from the same person’s funding, and looking very similar no matter where you go. You can look through a list of all the Carnegie libraries built in Minnesota: 66 were built here, and 25 are still working as libraries. This kind of communal history is part of the glue that binds us together as a profession; we are more than just nice people who hand out books and computers (though we also are that!), we are part of a heritage of providing information and serving our community. Yes, this means we are awesome!
I need that book, and that one, and that one…
Even the shelves of books in this library speak to the time spent thinking about usability for patrons. The thousands of books on the second floor of the library, where adult fiction and nonfiction are found, are neatly arranged on these nice shelves. They are not too tall to reach the top shelf, and there are not any books down on the floor where it is also hard to reach. And it is tough to see in this photo, but the endcaps of the shelves are just lovely! They have words all over them, making them perfect for a library!They are also translucent, so let in even more light to the aisles. And the bright open feeling is enhanced by the long lines of sight here, so you never feel crowded. Thinking about this kind of space planning really makes a big different to your patrons, and encourages them to use and enjoy their library!
excellent keyboard!
Yet another accessibility feature of this library is the computer available to people with impaired vision. Patrons can sign up for this computer at the Reference desk, just behind this computer, and can easily access everything they need! As we are all planning for serving our communities, it is important to remember that making materials accessible to everyone matters. You can also see a fun feature here, with the giant crossword hanging on the wall outside the computer lab! Community members have been stopping by to fill in answers, so everyone can have fun together.
it just looks like fun here!
This is one of the special areas set up on the first floor for kids to have fun on their library visits! (Okay, not just kids – I had fun here too!) This is Pat’s Place, named for Pat Christianson, a former deputy director of the library. Setting up these memorial areas can have many benefits, including giving the kids an excellent place to enjoy their library, and in providing a way to physically represent the service someone gave to the library.The rest of the children’s area is filled with interesting books, some great art and other specific play areas, and has more of that great open feel that makes it welcoming to patrons -and easy for parents and guardians to keep an eye on kids as they rocket around the area having fun!
meeting rooms mean community outreach success!
This is a really large meeting room, able to fit 300 or so people! There are two other meeting rooms for community members, smaller so there is something sized to fit the needs of any type of gathering. The US flag up front was donated to the library by the Sunrise Kiwanis club of St. Cloud – some great community connection building! In more rural areas around the country, there many not be other places for community members to meet if they did not have access to a public library’s meeting room. St Cloud is demonstrating what a library could be providing to meet the needs of community members in all sorts of ways!
As always, we encourage you to reach out to your colleagues in other libraries, to talk about ideas and experiences, and to support each other as we work together to provide some great service to our communities!
At CMLE, we are dedicated to connecting our members with each other, in order to share resources, experiences, and library enthusiasm! As we make our way to each member library and hear about all the great things that happen at each one, we write up a blog post and put it on our website for everyone to access.
But, just in case you happen to miss a Library Visit post, we have created a page specifically for them! Check it out and admire all the great work your colleagues are doing! We will continue to update the page as we continue to visit more libraries.
We will be taking a short break from visiting libraries, as the holiday time is crazy for everyone, but in the New Year we will be back at it! So, if we haven’t been to see your library yet, keep an eye on your email! 🙂
If you have some time over the weekend, and have already finished up our November book group selections, we present – for your reading enjoyment – our December books!
In December, our Monthly Topic is stress management, and this book can be a way for you to get a handle on that. And we all start thinking about New Year’s resolutions as we get closer, so this book can help you to focus some of your energy on thinking about happiness goals!
Gretchen Rubin spends a year thinking about happiness, and how to make her already pretty-good life better. This was a NYT best seller for two years, and if you read it when it first came out, you might want to give it a re-read with some new perspective. She followed this up with several other books on happiness, and strategies for making your life happier.
She and her sister also create a weekly podcast with tidbits of advice on happiness-building activities you can take on. After I listened to “Podcast 91: Delete a Soul-Sucking App” I deleted Twitter from my phone, because it was making me upset to read my feed – but I couldn’t stop myself from spending time following every distressing discussion. I have to say I was much happier afterward!
I have picked up several other useful tips on increasing happiness – a very worthy goal in my eyes – from the podcast, and from the Happier series of books from Gretchen. If you have not explored in this area, try out her first book (this one!), or follow her blog, or listen to the podcast. See if consciously thinking about happiness strategies can make you happier this month! Tell us all about your experiences!
December is a hectic month for everyone, so we want to be respectful of your time and give you a quick book. At 96 pages, this is the shortest of Murakami’s books translated into English from his native Japanese. (“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is also pretty short, but not much information on librarians!)
If you have not yet read any of his books, you have an interesting adventure ahead of you! If you have already delved into the somewhat surrealistic world he creates, you will find many of his typical images here: sheep, cats, jazz, whisky.
This is not a library you would aspire to for yourself, but sometimes it’s good to get out there and try some new ways of thinking. Holiday times can be a challenge for everyone, so breaking up your traditions (and traditions of holiday-induced stress!) with an interesting and odd little look into a new world might be just the thing to inspire you to enjoy your lives and your holiday traditions!
Have you read other Murakami books? They are nearly impossible to describe, but what was your favorite part? Were there books you particularly liked? If this is your first time in the Murakami world: welcome! There are adventures to be had here, and things to explore.
Videos can be a great way to demonstrate your services, and to advocate for your library! Check out these library videos, to see what kinds of things other libraries are trying.
Does your library make videos? Would you like to?? At CMLE Headquarters, we want to encourage video creation and sharing, so tell us about your work!
2016 Livonia Public Library Summer Reading Program … Parkour!
“Do you need a book recommendation? Have you ever seen a librarian stunt double? Check out our 2016 Livonia Library Summer Reading video featuring Phoenix Freerunning Academy and our very limber librarians. Jump into action on June 4, 2016 by grabbing a reading log at any of the Livonia Public Libraries! Visit our website for more info: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org. And for the Children’s summer reading log, visit our Children’s Programs page: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org/kids/…. Library Parkour!”
Save the Troy Library “Adventures In Reverse Psychology”
“The city of Troy, Michigan was facing a budget shortfall, and was considering closing the Troy Public Library for lack of funds. Even though the necessary revenues could be raised through a miniscule tax increase, powerful anti-tax groups in the area were organized against it. A vote was scheduled amongst the city’s residents, to shut the library or accept the tax increase, and Leo Burnett Detroit decided to support the library by creating a reverse psychology campaign. Yard signs began appearing that read: “Vote to Close Troy Library on August 2nd – Book Burning Party on August 5th.” No one wants to be a part of a town that burns books, and the outraged citizens of Troy pushed back against the “idiotic book burners” and ultimately supported the tax increase, thus ensuring the library’s survival.”
A Vision Shared: School Board/District Planning for
School Library Advocacy
“This short film provides pointers for creating a school board/district wide vision statement for school libraries and emphasizes the importance of advocating for school libraries.”
Librarians Do Gaga
“Students and faculty from the University of Washington’s Information School get their groove on.”
Librarian Rhapsody- Shoalhaven Library Staff
This is the most unusual annual report from a library that I’ve ever seen – but combining telling their community about the things they have been doing over the past year with a strong message advocating for the library is a great touch! (Keep watching to the end for the final couple of sentences!)
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
