Whether you are enjoying the peace and solitude of staying home, or are going a little bonkers being trapped at home – we are all starting to appreciate how nice it is to get the mail each day.
And CMLE wants to send you a cheerful note!
We will be sending out special postcards to ANYONE who signs up. (They should be here to send out in the next few days.) Angie designed them, and they are very cheerful!
Do you have kids, or grand-kids, who would like a postcard sent directly to them? Sign up!
Do you have students who can check with their adults, then sign up to get a postcard? Share this link!
We’re all going to be home for a while. It’s important to do things that help to keep up our basic happiness levels. While a postcard isn’t going to fix everything – but we think it will give you a little lift to know that someone is thinking about you!
Sign up yourself. Share this link with LITERALLY ANYONE! This is not just for our members, not just for people in Minnesota. We will be happy to send out a little happy postcard anywhere in the US. (Heck, I’ll even figure out how to send it internationally if that’s important for you!)
We are thinking of you. Don’t forget that you are part of the CMLE team! We are all together in this – and we are here to support you and the work you are doing.
We know our members are closed now, and working to provide service to
their community members online. And we are here to help you!
We have a variety of resources available for you. Take all of these
and use them in your work, put the links onto your website, share them
with your community in your social media or newsletters. And if you need
more individual assistance, email us at admin@cmle.org.
This is your chance to show your community how valuable you are to
them. There are a lot of services you can continue to provide to people
who are at home, bored, and in need of the work a library can do.
We may be in a social isolation period for weeks – you do not want to
let your library community members go without you for that long.
Here are a few things you can use and share right now:
Special CMLE Postcards: We will be sending out special postcards to ANYONE who signs up. (They should be here to send out in the next few days.) Do you want a cheerful postcard? Sign up! Sign up your kids, parents, neighbors, friends, students – anyone who could use a little burst of happiness in their day.
What Are We Doing Today?: we are setting up a new page every day with activities kids (and others!) can do at home
Library Life Online page: we are posting information about working at home here, as well as a lot of suggestions for library services and links to material you can share
Reading With Libraries: this is our book group podcast. We look at a new genre each week, have genre-related beverages, and chat about books. You can link to our website to stream episodes, and people can subscribe in any podcast app
Armchair Travel to Minnesota State Parks: this is our Goodreads book challenge game. We look at every state park in Minnesota, and give a related book prompt. People find a book to read that meets the prompt, and can record it on our page. We are also recording a quick weekly podcast to share book ideas for each park: Browsing Books.
Linking Our Libraries podcast: This is of more interest to our library staff members, and other library staffers. Each episode we look at a new library skill, and chat with a Guest Host who shares their experience with the skill.
CMLE Training: We have some training classes here, available FREE to all while schools are closed; go through the short classes and get an hour of PD/CE credit.
Weekly newsletter: We will continue sharing our content and resources for you daily, and will collect all the articles into a Friday newsletter as usual. Subscribe here, and it will drop in your email every week!
What else do you need? What would be helpful? What are you missing in your library work to share online?
We have several years worth of content on the site, so search for
material you might need on topics important to you. And let us know what
else we can do to help you to provide great service to your community!
“Hospitals around the world are close to running out of N95 masks in the middle of the worst pandemic of XXI century! Our purpose as a company has always been related to making a positive impact and tackle #GlobalChallenges through #Innovation, #Nanotechnology and #AntimicrobialMaterials. Our purpose leads us to solve this problem in a low-cost, quick, and descentralized way through #DistributedManufacturing. We propose a #Reusable, #Customizable, #Modular, #Antimicrobial and #Antiviral #3Dprinted #RespiratorSystem made with #Copper3D high quality nanocomposite #PLACTIVE.
Basically, there is a breakdown in the global stock of this product, and it is a basic necessity, especially for Healthcare personnel who are at the forefront of fighting this disease. In many countries the authorities have also recommended the use of these masks (or similar) on public transport. These masks, despite being effective, also have some problems such as a short lifecycle (about 8 hours), and have another even more serious problem. Respiratory viruses, specifically SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19) can live up to 72 hours on different surfaces. This is a problem since using a conventional mask, at the end of the day we would have a high viral/bacterial load trapped within millimeters of our nose and mouth, further exposing ourselves to these dangerous microbes.”
This is not something most of us will be able to do. (Unlike sewing fabric face masks, which all of us can do!) If you have access to a 3D printer, and can get the filaments, you could help to save lives!
This is so impressive work by this company! “Copper3D decided to immediately release the patent (which was filed and pending) so that this design would be completely Open Source. This is probably the first case in the history of 3D printing that the same design is downloaded massively worldwide to prevent more deaths in the context of a pandemic.”
Truly a case of a company putting global need over their own profits. Please remember this, and support this company when you can with your later 3D printing purchases.
Things aren’t too scary right now, but experts are forecasting a lot of scary things are coming very quickly. It helps to keep our own stress levels down if we can do things to contribute! And we can help other people with our work.
Stay home. Stay healthy. Do some sewing. And if you can 3D print – here is a wonderful project!!!!
Being at home has it’s good points: doing many hours of work is more fun when you are on a couch, in your sweats. And of course the drawbacks are pretty obvious too.
No matter how well you are adjusting to this crisis, we are all getting restless. Doing something to help can be one solution!
Do you sew? Well, do you sew yet? Because it’s just not that hard to do some basic sewing. (I know: I can do basic sewing! It’s not hard.) Sewing some face masks now would be a good way to spend time!
You might not need them right now. Medical professionals in the area might not need them right now. But thinking ahead, about the very hard times that we know are coming for health care professionals – it’s good to be ready. Your masks may help to save some lives in a few weeks!
And if all that happens is you learned a new skill, tried a new thing, and had some crafting fun? Well, let’s just call that a win!
(3 regular or large size masks of either design, can be made from 1/4 yard (9″) of 45” wide fabric)
3” piece of soft wire (this can be decorative wire as shown, or picture wire, or even a paper clip if that’s all you can find)
approx. 22” of elastic cord (child size length 10″, regular size length 11-12″, large size length 13″)
“WHAT KIND OF FABRIC? You can choose any tightly woven cotton or cotton/poly fabric you like. Hold it up to the light to see how tight the weave is. Use the same fabric for outer and lining if you want, or use different ones to help you remember which side is clean and which dirty.
The research (see links at the end) shows 100% cotton having some effectiveness. Cotton/polyester blends may have additional properties of repelling water, making them better barriers to keep droplets from soaking through outer layers.”
Set up a Zoom session, sew with friends, and let’s get some good things going!
It’s always nice to escape into a sweet romantic story. Here are some reading suggestions set in small towns or rural environments that will bring some love to your TBR list:
As always, the links below lead to Amazon.com. When you go there, if you buy anything Amazon will give us a small percent of their profits. Thank you in advance for your support of CMLE’s programs!
The Chai Factor by Farah Heron “Thirty-year-old engineer Amira Khan has set one rule for herself: no dating until her grad-school thesis is done. Nothing can distract her from completing a paper that is so good her boss will give her the promotion she deserves when she returns to work in the city. Amira leaves campus early, planning to work in the quiet basement apartment of her family’s house. But she arrives home to find that her grandmother has rented the basement to . . . a barbershop quartet. Seriously? The living situation is awkward: Amira needs silence; the quartet needs to rehearse for a competition; and Duncan, the small-town baritone with the flannel shirts, is driving her up the wall.
As Amira and Duncan clash, she is surprised to feel a simmering attraction for him. How can she be interested in someone who doesn’t get her, or her family’s culture? This is not a complication she needs when her future is at stake.”
American Dreamer by Adriana Herrera “For Nesto Vasquez, moving his Afro-Caribbean food truck from New York City to the wilds of Upstate New York is a huge gamble. If it works? He’ll be a big fish in a little pond. If it doesn’t? He’ll have to give up the hustle and return to the day job he hates. He’s got six months to make it happen—the last thing he needs is a distraction.
Jude Fuller is proud of the life he’s built on the banks of Cayuga Lake. He has a job he loves and good friends. It’s safe. It’s quiet. And it’s damn lonely. Until he tries Ithaca’s most-talked-about new lunch spot and works up the courage to flirt with the handsome owner. Soon he can’t get enough—of Nesto’s food or of Nesto. For the first time in his life, Jude can finally taste the kind of happiness that’s always been just out of reach.”
You’d be Mine by Erin Hahn “Annie Mathers is America’s sweetheart and heir to a country music legacy full of all the things her Gran warned her about. Superstar Clay Coolidge is most definitely going to end up one of those things.
But unfortunately for Clay, if he can’t convince Annie to join his summer tour, his music label is going to drop him. That’s what happens when your bad boy image turns into bad boy reality. Annie has been avoiding the spotlight after her parents’ tragic death, except on her skyrocketing YouTube channel. Clay’s label wants to land Annie, and Clay has to make it happen.
Swayed by Clay’s undeniable charm and good looks, Annie and her band agree to join the tour. From the start fans want them to be more than just tour mates, and Annie and Clay can’t help but wonder if the fans are right. But if there’s one part of fame Annie wants nothing to do with, it’s a high-profile relationship. She had a front row seat to her parents’ volatile marriage and isn’t interested in repeating history. If only she could convince her heart that Clay, with his painful past and head over heels inducing tenor, isn’t worth the risk.”
Untouchable by Talia Hibbert “Sensible, capable, and ruthlessly efficient, Hannah Kabbah is the perfect nanny… until a colossal mistake destroys her career and shatters her reputation. These days, no-one in town will hire her—except Nathaniel Davis, a brooding widower with a smile like sin and two kids he can’t handle.”
Taking Flight by Siera Maley “Seventeen-year-old Lauren Lennox is a city girl at heart. Being born and raised in Los Angeles, California by her movie star mom and ex-child-star father sounds like an ideal childhood, but with a mother who’s always busy and a father who suffers from alcoholism, Lauren’s already parentless childhood and her resulting rebellious streak are made worse when her mother passes away and she’s left alone with her father, who doesn’t care how little school she attends, how much alcohol she drinks, or how many girls she sleeps with. When she puts too many toes out of line and a judge deems her father unfit to be her guardian, she’s shipped across the country to the rural mountains of northern Georgia, where a personal friend of the judge lives with his wife and two kids on a farm.”
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