Category Archives: Advocacy

Advocacy, Programs

African American Read-In at CMLE

From February 1st – 28th, participate in the African American Read In.  The goal is to “document readers making the celebration of African American literacy a traditional part of Black History Month activities.” The celebration encourages places like schools, churches, libraries, professional organizations and citizens to get involved in making literacy “a significant part of Black History Month by hosting and coordinating community Read-Ins.”

To help you plan your own event, check out these resources from Read Write Think.org that include links to classroom activities, a Library of Congress exhibit, and a host report card for you to record what happened at your own event.

Also visit NCTE’s site, which has this toolkit to help you prepare for your read in event. The toolkit has links to multiple booklists to help you with reading material selection.

To help our members – and any library people! – celebrate, CMLE will host our own African-American Read In! Tuesday, Feb. 20, at our headquarters location we will be available to talk books all day! From 11:00 to 1:00 we invite people to drop by with their lunch (Val’s is across the street, if you need something!), and have a discussion about African-American books you read, the ones you want to read, and look at the books we have in our office. Definitely feel free to bring in books/titles/authors you want us all to admire!

Join us, and Official Office Dog Lady Grey, in celebrating African-American literature!!

Advocacy, Communication

#LoveYourMNLibrary

Valentine's Day plain M&Ms (8416943187)
Well, you probably already know that we love libraries. Pretty much, we are all about the coolness and awesomeness of libraries! (Technically, that’s essentially a job description for us; but it would be true no matter what!)

So each weekday in February, we have been sharing an interesting program from a randomly selected library across Minnesota. You can find all of them on social media at #LoveYourMNLibrary, and definitely add in some good things about your own library!!

Here are just a few of the facts we found about Minnesota libraries:

  • We love libraries! Each day in Feb, we will share a fun library fact about a MN public library doing something amazing. We have a list of all of them, and will randomly draw names to share. Chime in to share other lovely facts using #LoveYourMNLibrary ! #LibraryLoversMonth
  • #LoveYourMNLibrary Today we celebrate the excitement of Super (Science!) Saturday happening at the Zumbrota Public Library! Bottles + Balloons – you know that’s going to be so fun!!
  • #LoveYourMNLibrary Connecting to your community is great! The Owatonna Public Library is hosting a #CaptureOwatonna Photo Contest – with winning photos displayed in the library! Great work @owatonnalibrary!
  • #LoveYourMNLibrary Book groups are always fun! And the  Gilbert Public Library will have the next meeting of their Cookbook Club Tue Feb 20!  Cookbooks are always fun, and can stimulate good discussion! Does your book group talk cookbooks?
  • #LoveYourMNLibrary Are you ready to make some valentines? The Foley Public Library is hosting a Valentine’s Day Make and Take program for kids!! Go, take a kid, and make some nice cards to give to your favorite library staffer! Yay @GRiverLibrary
  • #LoveYourMNLibrary Have you visited the Hopkins branch of the Hennepin County Public Library yet?? In addition to other cool stuff, they have a searchable database of art in the library! Great work, @hclib!

It is a good idea to take a moment to step back and realize just how awesome libraries are – and how truly valuable we are to the communities we are serving! In the bustle of everyday work, it can be too easy to forget that.

Celebrate the love-filled month of February online with the #LoveYourMNLibrary  #LibraryLoversMonth messages!!

Advocacy, Communication

#LoveYourMNLibrary with CMLE!

Valentine's day M&Ms in the shape of a heart (8418026760)
We aren’t shy about it at all: at CMLE we looove our libraries! And we also love libraries in general! So we are celebrating the love-filled month of February looking at libraries across Minnesota. You are definitely invited to join in on the library-love-fest with fast facts about your own library!

We are collecting facts and ideas at #LoveYourMNLibrary. Each weekday we have a new cool thing one of the libraries in Minnesota is doing, hosting, or promoting. As I am a data nerd, I have collected a list of libraries across the state, and am using Random.org to select a new library each day.  We share something interesting from that library, and hope everyone else is inspired to try new things – or to bask in the glow of the wonderfulness that already is you!

This is just a quick taste of the excellent things happening in our libraries. We know there are SO many more fun things libraries of all types are trying across Minnesota. Dive in and share some with us, so we can all feel the library love!!

Advocacy

Burger King talks Net Neutrality

Day of Action to Save Net Neutrality net neutrality banner ad

I’m not much of a fast food eater (living downwind from a fast food beef processing plant for a few years will put you off it forever!); but I am a BIG fan of net neutrality!! We have run several articles here about the importance of Net Neutrality to libraries. (SPOILER: It’s really important!) Here is a recent one.

So I did laugh out loud when I saw Burger King’s video explaining net neutrality by using Whoppers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltzy5vRmN8Q

Watch to see people losing their minds when they realize that paying extra will get Whoppers right now, while people who pay just the standard prices are waiting up to 20 minutes. (I can’t tell you how much I hope these people are actors!) And it really does give a very clear and immediate sense of just what losing Net Neutrality means for consumers of the internet. We may not be able to scream at our internet providers for not giving us decent access to our websites anymore, but oh will we want to do so!!

Is this another example of a big company shamelessly promoting a social issue to raise their corporate profile. Sure, probably.  I’m thinking more about Burger King this week than I have in the last five years. But it’s a cute video, and it does help to explain something that is important to libraries. Are you going to share it with your patrons? I don’t know – it would be great if there were other educational materials.

But as you ponder all the larger issues around it – click on the video, giggle while you watch it, and then get mad as heck and tell your legislators YOUR LIBRARY NEEDS NET NEUTRALITY!!!!! (Details on doing that are here.)

Advocacy, Communication

Library Legislative Day!

Advocacy Logo

You know that we are big fans of library advocacy work! We love to talk about libraries, and all the neat things libraries do every day. Advocacy is just telling that stuff to our stakeholders and funders, to be sure they know all the important details about our work.

Libraries stand alone in the service we provide. We give books to people. We give them research articles. We give them access to computers and other technology. We give them our expertise in working with information. We give them programs. We give them training. We get them ready for college. We teach them how to do research. We train them to know the real meaning of “fake news.”

The value of libraries can be calculated qualitatively: the quality of the materials and services we provide is phenomenal. The “how does this feel?” test will generally blow the positive end off the charts: libraries “feel” great, most people like us, and even just hearing about the assorted stuff we do is enough to impress most people.

But our quantitative value is also pretty darn impressive! There have been a bunch of studies calculating the ROI (Return On Investment) of libraries. These are most frequently done on public libraries, but my moderately-expert opinion on this is that the general results would likely carry over to all types of libraries. These public library studies show that for every $1 invested in public libraries, value returned varies from a “mere” $2.97 in Suffolk County, New York, to $10.18 in Florida public libraries.

The Minnesota Library Association (MLA) organizes Library Legislative Day each year. This year, it is Tuesday, March 6.

Want more info about this? Check out this MLA/ITEM Legislative Legwork Committee site – new this year with a TON of great info!! If you have ever wanted to know even the smallest detail of what it’s like to go to Legislative Day (spoiler: it’s fun!), it is here!

If you would like to attend Legislative Day, CMLE members can apply for scholarships to cover the costs of finding a sub, traveling, or other costs associated with your attendance.  We will give you a scholarship for this event, even if you have already received one  this year or are planning to attend something else. Legislative Day is important to libraries, and we want to support you in attending!