It’s a year of STEAM at CMLE! Each week we admire some aspect of STEAM education that is being tried by people and organizations all over the place.

If you are not a gamer, or don’t have one in your life, you may not understand the huge reach esports have achieved. This is a multi-billion dollar a year business, spread across the world. This is not “just” people sitting around playing games; it’s building an entire new culture of sports and gaming. It’s pretty exciting to see it all happening!

And of course in libraries, we are all about being on the cutting edge of technology. It’s part of our mission to keep current with the things that are most interesting to our patrons – or things that might be interesting to them.

So this story was pretty interesting! You can read the excerpt below, to find out how the Pottsboro Library managed to get a grant to start their own esports program. What a great way to connect with their community members!!!

Pottsboro Library receives
federal grant to start esports program

Pottsboro Library received a $50,000 federal grant to start a scholastic esports “program.

Esports is a form of competition using video games, and its popularity is on the rise.

The Institute of Museum and Library Services, a federal agency, is funding this new program which will place esports programs in libraries across the country.

“So it takes something that people love, which is what libraries are all about, independent learning. Taking something they love and then letting them explore it,” said Director of Pottsboro Library Dianne Connery.

She said they take pride in having innovative technology available at their library so an esports program will fit right in.

Of the $50,000 grant, most of the money is going toward required equipment like gaming computers, headsets, and something all library visitors can benefit from.

“The piece that I’m very excited about is faster internet,” Connery said.

Connery refers to esports as “connected learning” and says young people will learn important career and life skills like problem-solving, collaboration, and communication — all while playing video games.

Since they are one of a few libraries nationally to implement this, Connery and her team will get to share their experiences with the program to libraries across the country.”

(Read the rest of this article here, and admire their photos!)

We always like to meet up with our members, and to chat with everyone! We have more than 300 libraries across our twelve counties, and we want to work with everyone to be sure you connect to us and to each other. You are all doing such useful work, and it’s good to talk with other people who do what you do.

On Tuesday we went to St. John’s to hear author Chris Abani talk about his poetry and his writing. The talk was called Stories of Struggle, Stories of Hope: Art, Politics and Human Rights . We met up to distribute the tickets CMLE reserved, and sat together for the reading and Q&A event.

I did not know about his books before this event was announced, and it was so interesting to discover them! There are a few books linked below, so you can browse them yourself.

We are already planning two more author member events in this series at St. Ben’s. Let us know if you want to go to either or both, and we will get tickets for us all! Email at admin @ cmle.org.

• Shena McAuliffe: Public Reading: October 24, 2019 Upper Gorecki 7:00 PM
• Sally Wen Mao: Her reading will take place on February 4th in Upper Gorecki at 7:00 PM.

All the books shown below have Amazon.com links. If you click on one, and buy a book – or anything else – Amazon will give us a small percentage of their profits. Thank you for your support – it really helps us a lot!

The Secret History of Las Vegas: A Novel ” Before he can retire, Las Vegas detective Salazar is determined to solve a recent spate of murders. When he encounters a pair of conjoined twins with a container of blood near their car, he’s sure he has apprehended the killers, and enlists the help of Dr. Sunil Singh, a South African transplant who specializes in the study of psychopaths. As Sunil tries to crack the twins, the implications of his research grow darker. Haunted by his betrayal of loved ones back home during apartheid, he seeks solace in the love of Asia, a prostitute with hopes of escaping that life. But Sunil’s own troubled past is fast on his heels in the form of a would-be assassin. “

The Face: Cartography of the Void ” In The Face: Cartography of the Void, acclaimed Nigerian-born author and poet Chris Abani has given us a profound and gorgeously wrought short memoir that navigates the stories written upon his own face. Beginning with his early childhood immersed in the Igbo culture of West Africa, Abani unfurls a lushly poetic, insightful, and funny narrative that investigates the roles that race, culture, and language play in fashioning our sense of self. “

Lagos Noir “In the introduction to this excellent anthology, Abani welcomes readers to Lagos, Nigeria, a city of more than 21 million and an amazing amalgam of wealth, poverty, corruption, humor, bravery, and tragedy. Abani and a dozen other contributors tell stories that are both unique to Lagos and universal in their humanity…This entry stands as one of the strongest recent additions to Akashic’s popular noir series.”

As you probably know, CMLE is a multitype library system. That means we have 300+ organizations as members, and they are libraries of all types: schools, public, academic, and special.

(Yes. Of course they are ALL special! But “special” in library lingo means libraries in a big catch-all category, including hospitals, history centers, prisons, insurance companies, military bases, and more.)

We cover the geographic area of twelve counties. If you are a library in one of those counties, you are a CMLE member! Great!! We are so glad you are here

There are seven of us across the state of Minnesota, and while we all do some slightly different things essentially we are all the same: here to help support our members and help them do some advocacy and education!

I think we are pretty great! (I am ever so slightly biased in that opinion!) And we would like to be even more useful to our members across the state.

So we hired a really good library consultant to come work with us on making a strategic plan. Part of that work, of course, is to find out what people all over the state think.

And thus: the Big Ask!

If you are reading this, and work in a library in Minnesota – no matter what you do, no matter whether you are certified/degreed or not, whether you are full time or part time, no matter whether someone else said it was okay to do it, WE WANT YOU!

(I’m learning to speak Minnesotan, so trying to make sure there are NO shrinking violets in the background thinking “oh, she doesn’t mean me.” YES! I MEAN YOU!!!)

Fill out our survey, right here.

Then, send it to a friend or a colleague!! That person sitting next to you? Forward it to them! Someone in a neighboring school library? Forward it to them! Someone you might not really know yet, but know their email address in their library? Forward it to them, and enjoy this great opportunity to meet nice new people!

Thanks so much for doing this!!!

We want to be helpful, we want to do good things for our members. We are spoiled, because our members are always out doing neat things. We want to be ready to provide whatever help we can to help you do even more neat things!!

Instructions from the survey:

The seven multicounty multitype library systems (MCMT) are developing a strategic plan to guide future cooperative efforts.  We are conducting a survey to learn more about the needs of member libraries to understand more about your satisfaction with past programs and your ideas for future programs.  

Your voice is very important!  Please help us design a flexible plan that will help us make day-to-day and long-term decisions.  

This survey will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.  All responses are anonymous and will only be shared in a summary report with the MCMT coordinating council members.

Please CLICK HERE to register to join a virtual focus group to give additional feedback to us.

We encourage you to forward this survey to others in the Minnesota library sector.  

Please respond by:  11:59 p.m. on Monday, September 30

Thank you for your time! If you have any questions about the survey, please contact Amanda Standerfer (strategic planning process facilitator) at amanda@standerferconsulting.com.

You probably know that we run a couple of podcasts here:

• Linking Our Libraries: talking about library skills each week
• Reading With Libraries: podcast book group, with new genres, books, and beverages each week

So, yeah – we are big fans of podcasts! They can be such a good way to share ideas with your community.

Each week we are going to share a podcast from a library, or looking at books, so you can join us in expanding podcast community and admiring the work others are doing to share cool info!

This week we are admiring the work done by the New York Public Library. “The Librarian Is In is the New York Public Library’s podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

Every week, Gwen Glazer and Frank Collerius discuss the books they’re reading, pop culture and the literary zeitgeist, and the world of libraries—and welcome special guests.

Gwen is the recommendations librarian in the Readers Services unit, and Frank is the manager of Jefferson Market Library. They bring equal parts humor, passion, and knowledge to this unique look at the world of books.”

They have a lot of interesting topics covered here! Recent shows include:

• Books on the Subway
• Bunny, I Love You!
• The Dog-Eared Days of Summer
• The Katniss Konundrum

If you are looking for a podcast that is cheery, fun, and filled with good library information – check out this one!