Category Archives: CMLE

Books, CMLE, General

Happy Reading! Join us in our Goodreads groups!

New month, new books!

If you’ve been reading along each month with our Goodreads book groups, we hope you have been enjoying the selections, and learning great things to help further your professional life! If you are just joining us, fantastic! Here are the books we are reading for the month of February:

For the CMLE Librarian Professionals group, we are reading People Skills: How to Assert Yourself, Listen to Others, and Resolve Conflicts by Robert Bolton.

This book addresses several different communication problems and offers solutions, in order to build more meaningful relationships. We will learn how to listen better and how to handle ourselves effectively during conflict!

For our CMLE Librarians Enjoying Books group, we continue with our theme of books about librarians with this mystery: Books Can Be Deceiving by Jenn McKinlay

Read about the mystery taking place at the Briar Creek Public Library when a body is found and the librarian’s friend is named as a suspect!

Happy February reading!

CMLE, Communication, Visits

Vote! Let’s have another social event!

The first one was so fun, we are already looking forward to the next one!

Members have requested that we move this around, to be sure everyone gets a chance to easily attend and enjoy dinner together. So we are setting up a vote, to let people give their ideas on a place you would like to visit for our March gathering. This will be the week of March 13, maybe Wednesday night (depending on the reservations available).

We have picked out a few places, all with good Yelp ratings and comments. Vote for the one that sounds tastiest to you, or that you have been meaning to try, or that you already love, or just sounds like a fun place to chat with your colleagues! (In some  smaller places, now and in the future, we might have to spread our group out. No problem for us! We can have fun chatting in smaller groups, and get to know each other in person as well as online!)

And if you have other thoughts, share them in the comment section, add them to the contact form, or email them to us at Headquarters.

Restaurant Choices(required)

CMLE, Communication, Tech, Training

Save the Date: ELM Expo, Sat March 11

 

Several of our CMLE members are using ELM, and we could really increase that number! Sign up for this mini expo today! (And remember: we have scholarship money to give you!)

We have information on our website about the Electronic Library for Minnesota. “ELM (Electronic Library for Minnesota) gives Minnesota residents online access to magazine, journal, newspaper, and encyclopedia articles, eBooks (online books), and other information resources.

ELM provides information on a vast array of topics, including consumer information, arts and humanities, current events, health, science, social science, politics, business, and more.”

Continue reading Save the Date: ELM Expo, Sat March 11 →

CMLE, General

Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas!

The-Chinamen's-game-board
let’s play!

I know some of our CMLE members are already circulating games in your libraries; and it’s a topic brought up fairly often when we are talking about materials and services to reach out to communities.

Games are great, and very engaging ways to encourage patrons to come to the library! They can be somewhat troublesome to circulate, as everyone wants to be sure they have the materials to share with the next patron – and small pieces or cards can be easy to lose. You can usually buy replacements for missing parts to games, but it is another step to consider when you are including them in your collection development plan.

There were some ideas being shared online about circulating games, so we are sharing them here, to help you think about your own circ policies! Continue reading Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas! →

CMLE, General

CMLE is celebrating Mardi Gras!

Angie decorated our cake! Drop by to enjoy a slice before it’s all gone!

CMLE members – we have a King Cake here in the office, and invite you to drop by to try a piece! It may go fast, so we can’t guarantee it will last; but if you miss the cake, we also have Valentine’s Day candy canes to distribute. At CMLE Headquarters, we are always ready to celebrate a holiday!!

If you are not familiar with the history of King Cakes as part of the Mardi Gras celebration in New Orleans, Wikipedia has some good information. And NPR wrote a story about their discovery of King Cakes: “Is that a Plastic Baby Jesus in my Cake?”

From our bakery’s information on the history of King Cakes:

“Today in New Orleans, the King Cake is an oval-shaped braided coffee cake which is decorated with cinnamon sugar in the official Mardi Gras colors – gold (for power), green (faith), and purple (justice) – and contains a tiny plastic baby that has replaced the coin used in medieval times. The person who gets the slice of cake with the baby in it must host the next party. At come parties, they are crowned king or queen. [Mary’s Note: more traditionally, the person finding the baby buys the next cake!] The cake, a gift shared by family, friends, and revelers alike, is eaten between the Twelfth Night and FatTuesday, the beginning of Lent. However, the cake often begins appearing during Christmas.”