You can read a book with cheese, to celebrate our neighbors to the East. Or read a book with a dual nature as a plot point, to celebrate the dual states of this park.
It’s always great to do our member events, where we get the chance to hang out with you, to chat about library issues, and to give you all the chance to meet with each other in person!
This week we have TWO opportunities to meet, chat, and have fun!
Join us Tuesday, Jan 21, from 6:00 to 8:00 (on your own schedule, drop in and out as you wish!) for crafting work! We will be in the Array Room at the Great River library. Come in the front door, turn right, and we are in the little room at the end of the hallway.
Bring your craft project, be prepared to oooh and aah over everyone’s work! And if you want to bring food or snacks for your consumption – great. (Please be prepared to be cautious with food and beverages around other people’s work, of course.)
And! There is more!!
This Thursday, Jan 23, from 6:00 to 8:00, also on your own schedule, we will be in the food court at Crossroads Mall. Bring your books, in any format you like, and be prepared to get some reading done! We know it can be hard to find time to get reading done; and some people would rather just read than chat about books. So we are here for you!!! (Okay, and we are fully prepared to read books, any time, any place!)
You can sign up for a free account on Meetup.com (they don’t spam you!), and get all of our events there. Or, of course, we will share everything here with you.
We are excited about sharing our VR kits with members. (Thank you to
the Minnesota Dept of Education, Library Services; and to the IMLS, for
the funding for this project!!) Virtual Reality kits are very cool, and
we have so many good educational resources for people to share.
And we are enjoying finding all sorts of articles on different ways VR is being used to entertain and educate people, in all sorts of different areas of life.
These kits are fun, of course – learning is best when it connects with people. And that is the main focus of our VR kits: education and learning.
So this was an especially interesting article, helping people to learn about history. This is a VR showing of 1943 liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto.
There is a photograph of soldiers holding guns on a group of people sitting on a curb, as the ghetto was being cleared. The VR creators then filled in details to get a 360 degree view of what else was happening in the scene.
“Professor Umbach added they did not want to use the VR “voyeuristically” by showing too much violence and they had deliberately chosen not to make the image too realistic.
She said the aim is to make people think critically about photos from past or current events rather than feel they had “gone back” to the Holocaust.”
You probably have noticed one of the most common things we say here: We are impressed by our members!
One of our main goals here at CMLE is to build relationships across our members, and to show everyone the cool things happening in all the libraries. (And I’ll tell you a secret: EVERY library has something cool happening!!! I’ve been in libraries across the entire country, and there is always something interesting to admire!)
I was dropping off one of our VR kits for Mary Shaddrick to use with her community. (If you want one, please apply!)
Check out this very cool display of new and interesting books! I am a complete sucker for libraries with cute signage – and when puns are included I’m just delighted!
This is where I also point out I suffer an advanced case of Librarian Disease: it’s very difficult for me to see books and not put my hands all over the books! But we were on a quick tour, because I was crashing into Mary’s day; so I tried to behave and keep moving. (The struggle is real!)
She was telling me how popular graphic novels are in this library. And this is a trend I definitely see across all types of libraries! Thank you to every library that buys them to entice readers, and for every funder/Board/administrator who understands this is a good thing!! (If you want graphic novels, but have misguided people who want to know why you are buying comic books – please contact me! I’m happy to come over and give the profession’s stand in favor of graphic novels. Yes, they are “real” books!)
I love seeing books available in multiple languages! As a library, we have a responsibility to meet people where they are and to provide materials that work for their skills. And as a person who is struggling to work on other languages, reading books is a great way to hone those skills too. So this was a happy discovery!
Check this out – the results of a cool grant they received! A room of 3D printers!!!! Of course, I’m such a fan of using technology tools to help share all sorts of information – and this was a delight to see!
What a nice library! You can admire the Circ Desk here, and get a feel for the way the library is set up. From this perspective, I’m standing with my back to most of the desks and the collection – trying not to get photos of any students. (We have a privacy procedures about that.) But look how nice and open and friendly this looks to patrons – just great!
(And as a small commercial for us – see that orange plastic box on the left side of the Circ desk? That’s one of our VR kits! We want to loan one or two to you also!)
And this was just delightful! I was there just after the holidays, and some decorations were still up. I just love this program that you can set up and let it run on its own. If you zoom in on those “gift tags” you can read that they have a quick description of their book content – but we don’t know what the title is. Let your patrons explore some interesting new books!
Have we been to your library yet? We’d love to come admire your work, and sharing it with the rest of the community! Email us at admin @ cmle . org (no spaces) so you can tell us a day that works for you! (We miss you and want to come see you!)
We know three are a lot of crafters who work in libraries. And of course, crafting is a great type of program to do in any type of library! Each week we are sharing links to a craft that you might want to try in your library – or work on it yourself. (Hint: we would love to see photos when you are done!!)
This week we are admiring these adorable little bee hives. Click on the link to this blog to get all the information on how you can make these yourself.
” Here is how I made my Bee Skep and I made two of them for less than $4.00!
Supplies
Plastic pot or any dome shaped bowl – Mine was a 5″ pot from Dollar Tree
13 feet of rope from Dollar Tree. That sounds like a lot and I was surprised that 1 plastic bowl used that much. You may need more if your pot is larger or if your rope is thin.
Hot glue and a hot glue gun
Black Sharpie
Exacto knife if you want to cut out the square “entrance”
Scissors for cutting rope to make the handle”
Here is one shot of the final product:
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