Category Archives: CMLE

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Communication, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Services, Special, Tech

Do you need some pep? Check out these library advocacy videos!

Videos can be a great way to demonstrate your services, and to advocate for your library!  Check out these library videos, to see what kinds of things other libraries are trying.

Does your library make videos? Would you like to?? At CMLE Headquarters, we want to encourage video creation and sharing, so tell us about your work!

2016 Livonia Public Library Summer Reading Program … Parkour!

“Do you need a book recommendation? Have you ever seen a librarian stunt double? Check out our 2016 Livonia Library Summer Reading video featuring Phoenix Freerunning Academy and our very limber librarians. Jump into action on June 4, 2016 by grabbing a reading log at any of the Livonia Public Libraries! Visit our website for more info: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org. And for the Children’s summer reading log, visit our Children’s Programs page: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org/kids/…. Library Parkour!”

Save the Troy Library “Adventures In Reverse Psychology”

“The city of Troy, Michigan was facing a budget shortfall, and was considering closing the Troy Public Library for lack of funds. Even though the necessary revenues could be raised through a miniscule tax increase, powerful anti-tax groups in the area were organized against it. A vote was scheduled amongst the city’s residents, to shut the library or accept the tax increase, and Leo Burnett Detroit decided to support the library by creating a reverse psychology campaign. Yard signs began appearing that read: “Vote to Close Troy Library on August 2nd – Book Burning Party on August 5th.” No one wants to be a part of a town that burns books, and the outraged citizens of Troy pushed back against the “idiotic book burners” and ultimately supported the tax increase, thus ensuring the library’s survival.”

 

 

A Vision Shared: School Board/District Planning for

School Library Advocacy

 

“This short film provides pointers for creating a school board/district wide vision statement for school libraries and emphasizes the importance of advocating for school libraries.”

Librarians Do Gaga

“Students and faculty from the University of Washington’s Information School get their groove on.”

 

Librarian Rhapsody- Shoalhaven Library Staff

This is the most unusual annual report from a library that I’ve ever seen – but combining telling their community about the things they have been doing over the past year with a strong message advocating for the library is a great touch! (Keep watching to the end for the final couple of sentences!)

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Strategies to Simplify: Tip 10: Tackle teamwork

“Work simply. Live fully.”  This week CMLE focuses on the following work productivity tip from Work Simply, Carson Tate’s popular book.  At CMLE, we’ve boiled down Tate’s wealth of knowledge from Work Simply to a few key points; please see the book for more detail and resources. At the bottom, see links to earlier tips in the series! Let’s all be our best selves….

This week’s activity: Learn effective ways to work together

Working as part of a team can be both rewarding and at times, frustrating. According to Carson Tate’s book Work Simply, this frustration is often the result of conflicting Productivity Styles. In order to overcome these conflicts and the resulting misunderstandings, it is necessary to take into account the different strengths and blind spots of each Productivity Style.

Recently, you discovered your Productivity Style with a simple assessment. Encourage your co-workers to take the assessment to determine their Productivity Style.

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Work Simply

Find your team members’ Productivity Style(s) to gain further awareness about their strengths and potential blind spots: 

Prioritizer: Strengths include having a clear purpose, understanding budgets, maintaining focus, and meeting deadlines. Blind spots: Tendency to be controlling, too much competitiveness, and valuing speed over excellence.

Planner: Strengths include strong organization, finishing work ahead of schedule, staying focused, and locating necessary resources. Blind spots: May be inflexible, lacks spur-of-the-moment thinking, may lose opportunities from being unwilling to change procedures.

Arranger: Strengths include following a daily plan of tasks, inclusive and interpersonal working style, and experienced at delegating. Blind spots: Takes on the problems and concerns of others, misses details, and can get distracted from the end goal.

Visualizer: Strengths include being able to complete large amounts of work quickly, thrives under pressure and deadlines, experienced multitasker, and open to taking risks. Blind spots: May miss details, be reckless, and may miss deadlines due to lack of planning.

Previous tips in this series

Check this out:, CMLE, Public, Visits

Visiting the Cambridge Public Library

Continuing our series of visits to CMLE area libraries, I was able to visit and chat with the staff at the Cambridge Public Library, as well as the East Central Regional Library Headquarters. Thanks to Barb Misselt, Sarah Hawkins, and Carla Lydon for taking time out to show me around libraries all day, and to give me  a lot of good info on libraries in their area!

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This is the BEST library saying!!

Although we were all sad to hear about the defeat of the Cambridge ballot measure for a much-needed new building (for more information on this and 70+ initiatives voted on across the country, check here), the library itself is still providing some great resources to its community! This sign, displayed in the community room, is a great example of the work they are doing to reach out to patrons and to serve their community! Libraries are in the business of providing information and entertainment; and we need to always search for that “yes” to give to our community.

Continue reading Visiting the Cambridge Public Library →

Check this out:, CMLE, Public, Visits

Visiting the Princeton Area Library

On my day of being shown around some of the ECRL libraries, it was great to see so many library people doing all kinds of interesting things in the different branches! The Princeton branch was like all others, in that there were a lot of patrons there using materials and some very exciting visual displays of library materials and artwork. They are also in a very beautiful building, with windows everywhere and a beautiful view of the Rum River. The prairie style interior and decor really emphasized the natural setting around the library. The result is just lovely!

When you walk in the front door, it is totally natural to look up in admiration for this art installation. These round paintings by Minnesota artist  Amy Sabrina, to commemorate different aspects of the life of Elmer L. Anderson, the 30th Governor of Minnesota. The visual biography is very striking, and again shows how visual representations of information can be so useful in conveying ideas to people. Libraries are here to share information in a way that is meaningful to the patron; visual tools are one strategy for this!

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Book display!

One of the fun things about visiting any library is seeing the displays they create for books! Creativity in libraries is valuable, and looking at different libraries gives different ideas for displays and things to celebrate in your own library! Celebrating Eloise is always fun, and her creator, Kay Thompson‘s birthday was Nov 9, 1909; so this is a great demonstration of library fun! Continue reading Visiting the Princeton Area Library →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

Advocacy from the ALA!

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At CMLE Headquarters, we want to help members with access to resources and ideas from across the profession and our professional organizations. This press release, copied below, is timely in discussing an issue that is being widely pondered by librarians, teachers, parents, and everyone else: how libraries can respond with information assistance after the election. Any election and post-election season is filled with excitement, changes, and a rapid flow of all kinds of information, and this one has had all of that.

Libraries are here to help people sort through that information, to figure out what is real and meaningful, and to understand how information can apply to patrons and to their communities.

Continue reading Advocacy from the ALA! →