Category Archives: Advocacy

Advocacy, CMLE, Communication, Programs

Tomorrow: Location change! Postcard Party held at CMLE HQ instead

While we are definitely disappointed after looking at the weather forecast for tomorrow (chilly with a side of rainy) we will not be discouraged from our library advocacy efforts! Keep in mind this is Banned Books Week, and writing to library stakeholders about the importance of libraries is a great way to celebrate the right to read!

Stop by our CMLE office tomorrow between 11am – 1pm (although we’re here all day!) to fill out postcards to send to legislators, stakeholders, school board members, principals, and anyone else that needs to learn about the value of libraries. As an additional treat, Official Office Dog Lady Grey will be in attendance to offer encouragement!

We’ll have the postcards, sample text you can use, library facts, and of course, snacks. We will mail your completed postcards too.

Hope to see you tomorrow! We are located inside the cmERDC building at 570 1st St. SE St. Cloud MN 56304. The photo is the outside of our building.

Advocacy

Advocacy Alchemy: Prepping for Book Challenges

It’s almost here: Banned Book Week!!

It’s weird to say we celebrate this week – it’s a sad thing, after all, to have books banned. But as a profession where our whole purpose is to share information, it’s good to let people know about books that may help them to stretch their ideas and perspectives.

Books can be banned for a variety of reasons. No matter what, every library should have a policy to let people know how a challenge should be handled – both staff and members of your community.

When you receive a challenge, the first temptation can be to panic. Perfectly normal, but take a nice deep breath.

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

This is from the American Library Association’s Challenge Reporting site. You do NOT need to be a member of the ALA – they really, really want to hear from you no matter what!!

“Since 1990, the ALA Office for Intellectual Freedom has maintained a database on challenged materials. ALA collects information from two sources: media reports and reports submitted by individuals. Reports of challenges culled from media across the country are compiled in the Journal of Intellectual Freedom and Privacy; (subscriptions to JIFP include access to the archives of the Newsletter on Intellectual Freedom) those reports are then compiled in the resource guide, Banned Books: Defending Our Freedom to Read.

All personal and institutional information submitted via this form is kept confidential. For material challenges, book titles and reasons may be disclosed upon inquiry.  If you have questions or would like to report the challenge over the phone, don’t hesitate to call 1-800-545-2433 x4226 or email oif@ala.org.”

 

Then click through their information, to be ready to meet your library and your community’s needs in challenges:

  • How to Respond to Challenges and Concerns about Library Resources
  • Formal Written Requests for Reconsideration
  • Guidelines for Reconsideration Committees
  • Conducting a Challenge Hearing
  • Working with the Media
  • Selection & Reconsideration Policy Toolkit for Public, School, & Academic Libraries
  • Answering Questions about Youth and Access to Library Resources
  • Working with Community Leaders

 

Advocacy, Books, Resources

Ways to Participate in Banned Books Week 2018

It’s coming! Banned Books Week 2018 is next week, Sept. 23rd – 29th. What is Banned Books Week? It’s when the book community comes together “in shared support of the freedom to seek and to express ideas, even those some consider unorthodox or unpopular.”

“The books featured during Banned Books Week have all been targeted with removal or restricted in libraries and schools. By focusing on efforts across the country to remove or restrict access to books, Banned Books Week draws national attention to the harms of censorship.”

Are you looking for ways to get involved and celebrate Banned Books Week in your media center, library, classroom, or even just for yourself? ALA has this article which features lots of suggestions, including:

  • Participate in the Dear Banned Author letter-writing campaign. Write to a favorite banned author (or post to social media) and share how their story has impacted your life. Use the hashtag #DearBannedAuthor.
  • Host or attend a Banned Book Week event! See if there is one in your area here.
  • Have a Banned Book Read-Out, which is a “continuous reading of banned and challenged books. Readers can join the tradition by posting a video of themselves reading from a banned book or talking about censorship.”
  • Attend the FREE webinar “Speak Out: Voicing Movements in the Face of Censorship” on Sept 25th at 1:30pm CST
  • Download free banners, infographics, social media images, coloring sheets, and more from ALA’s site.

Are you hosting an event or creating a display at your library for Banned Books week? Take a picture or just tell us about it! We’d love to hear more! Email us at admin@cmle.org.

Advocacy

Next Tuesday: Library Advocacy Postcard Party in the Park!

We don’t mean to alarm you, but since the earliest reported measurable snowfall in Minnesota was on September 14th, 1964, you should probably make the most of our currently comfortable and snow-free outdoor situation! Looking for a way to embrace this? Come to CMLE’s Postcard Party in the Park!

We host our Library Advocacy Postcard Parties several times each year in order to contact library stakeholders to remind them just how valuable and important libraries are to their communities. We mean all types of libraries: public, academic, special, and school.

For this postcard party we are focusing on local officials and decision makers. That means school boards, city council members, principals, and more. We will again provide library advocacy postcards, postage, and yummy snacks to fuel your advocacy efforts! If you are unsure of the identity of your local officials, do some research beforehand, otherwise we’re happy to help you out.

We look forward to seeing you next Tuesday! (If you can’t make it to the Gardens, stop by CMLE HQ and fill out a few postcards and we’ll get them mailed for you).

Advocacy, Podcast

Advocacy Alchemy: Podcasting

We love podcasting!

(Okay, you probably already knew that. It’s not like we are keeping it a secret or anything.)

CMLE uses podcasts to provide information and training opportunities to our member libraries – as well as to any other library person out there. They are quick, easy to listen to while you drive or wash dishes, you can listen on your own schedule, and (with all due modesty) they are all pretty entertaining as well as being filled with good information!

Today we are going to advocate for this tool of information sharing, and suggest you sign up (or check out our website) and to encourage your colleagues to keep in touch with this information as well.

Podcast Number One:
Linking Our Libraries

This was our original podcast.

We wanted to have an easy way to share information about library skills with our members – a format they could check out any time, to fit their own schedules.

Season One was an opportunity to practice trying out different topics and content, and to start bringing in Guest Hosts. The Hosts were uniformly interesting; our content and sound was….less impressive.

We kept going!

We honed in on some specific skills our members said they needed. Seasons Three and Four (happening now!) focus on leadership skills. Library people can lead from any position – you don’t need to be the boss, or have any specific job title. We show you how to strengthen your own skills, to help you to be more successful for your library!

Each episode has a show notes page, where you can find more information about each episode’s topic. We also share books we are reading in each one, and you can find that information on that same page. (We’re library people; we like books. It’s kind of a big deal.)

This season we are on a new podcast host, so be sure you are subscribed using this RSS feed (just copy it into your favorite podcast app!) http://linkingourlibraries.libsyn.com/rss. Or, you can just go to our website and hit play on each episode.

 

Podcast Number Two:
Reading With Libraries

We heard from a few people that they liked our book discussion feature of Linking Our Libraries.

I was briefly disconsolate. How come these people didn’t say how much they loved the content? The information on making good decisions? Planning? Staffing? Leading???

Then Angie and I shrugged, realized we also really like books, and started a second podcast that focused on books.

Okay, yes. A big reason we started this was to talk about books. We were doing that in the office anyway, and by doing it for work we could bring in other people to talk about books with us.

Reader: We did a podcast.

This one is set up as a book group podcast. The idea is that this is a book group podcast. Everyone listening is part of the fun of chatting about books. We have a new genre each week, and we have themed beverages to go along with each genre.

The focus of our organization is always to help our members with training and advocacy. So we also include a lot of Reader’s Advisory information on each genre. Library people need to be able to talk with patrons about all kinds of books, but it’s impossible to know everything about everything. So we wanted to have a resources people can use when they recommend books – and this is that resource.

Subscribe on any podcast app by typing in Reading With Libraries. Or, just go to our website to stream any episode while you read all the show notes, and browse all the Reader’s Advisory material. (A lot of that never makes it to the show, so the website is the only place to find it!)

This podcast also has a Patreon group, where you can donate to help support the show! Official Office Dog Lady Grey is prominently displayed on the page – you should check it out to admire her. And while we need money to support the podcast operating costs (host sites aren’t doing this for free!), we promise Lady Grey will receive treats as part of the payments from our Patreon supporters. Trust us: she deserves them all!

Season Two just wrapped up; Season three will start in December, so be sure you are subscribed now!

 

Podcast Number Three:
Book Bites

We are starting to build up an audience, and we don’t want to lose track of them.

Plus, you know: we like to talk about books!

So this is what we call a quickie podcast. It’s five minutes long, and drops on Tuesdays and Thursdays. On each episode, someone talks about a book they are reading, or one they enjoy.

Right now, these podcasts are found on our website (click here), or you can subscribe to Reading With Libraries and get them on your phone twice a week.

Just to keep things exciting: when Linking Our Libraries Season Four is over (in December), and we start dropping weekly episodes of Reading With Libraries, then the quickie Book Bites will be found on the LOL feed (as well as our website).

Check it out for some quick book ideas, and hear from all our different Guest Hosts who have books to share with you!

 

Are you podcasting?

Do you listen to other library podcasts??

We want to know about it! Reply in the comments below, or email us at admin @ cmle.org today!