Category Archives: Communication

AASL Best Digital Tools 2020: Talking Points

The American Association of School Librarians (AASL)  has announced their top choices for “electronic resources that provide enhanced learning and curriculum development for school librarians and their educator collaborators.” These resources were formerly separated into the Best Apps and Best Websites for Teaching and Learning and are now combined into the Best Digital Tools for Teaching & Learning.

This FREE resource can be especially useful during virtual and distance learning! “TalkingPoints is a free messenger tool for educators that helps remove barriers in language communication. The TalkingPoints app creates easier connections with parents via text messages directly to mobile devices and in their native languages.”

Shared foundations: Collaborate, Include, Engage

The Talking Points site has a Getting Started Guide as well as 5 Tips to Jump Start Connections. Read a review of this app from Common Sense Education or this one from Ed Surge.

Hear from educators and parents (2 min video) about how they use this app to communicate:

Virtual Book Happy Hour!

Virtual book happy hour logo

We miss chatting about books with you, so we’ve decided to bring the book group to you!

Last week we had our first Virtual Book Happy Hour and it was just the sort of end-of-week fun we needed!!

We shared books for all ages (some introduced by very young fans of CMLE) and even got to take a look at some of the creative projects our library friends are working on!

Can you join us?? We’d love to “see” you! Bring a book or a craft to share, or just get ready to chat about how things are going for you.
We will be holding these Virtual Book Happy Hours via Zoom this Thursday, April 23rd and next Thursday April 30th starting at 4:30pm. These are casual events so if you arrive later or have family members/pets/quarantine distractions, that is completely OK!

Here’s the link to the Zoom meeting: https://tinyurl.com/y9owq85l

Please email us with any questions! admin (at) cmle.org. Hope to see you Thursday! 😊

Why do Publishers Not Like Libraries???

Amazon Kindle 3

Okay, that’s a strong headline.

I don’t KNOW that all publishers don’t like libraries. It’s possible they like libraries just fine, in their private lives. Probably people who run big publishing houses took their kids to storytimes, visit the programs at their local public libraries, and enjoy being part of the community. They probably used academic libraries when they were in school. Maybe they even support funding for sufficient staff in the school libraries in their areas.

So, I guess we can’t just make a blanket statement.

But…we don’t have a bunch of extra money. We’re actually kind of known for that. So this kind of made me want to sob a bit when I read it; read an excerpt below:

Major publishers are sabotaging the public library

By Michael Kozlowski

Penguin Random House comprises the vast majority of ebooks published on a yearly basis and Macmillan and Hachette almost comprise of the rest. These companies have recently revised their contracts with the public library. Libraries will now have to purchase ebooks that are only good for two year contracts and then will have to devote the resources to see what books they want to buy again and which ones they do not. This is a far cry from the old policy which only had the library make a one time purchase for every ebook they wanted and could loan it out with abandon. Major publishers are now deliberately sabotaging the library system and their rational is they don’t want to devalue their front-list books and want people to buy them, instead of borrow them.

Hachette announced their library terms last week and in a statement, Hachette officials said the switch will mean lower prices for the “vast majority” of Hachette library e-books. That qualifies as a measure of good news for librarians, who have long complained that Hachette’s library e-book prices were unreasonably high. A Hachette spokesperson told PW that most HBG titles will likely be priced under $65, and there will be no limit on the number of lends within that two-year period, on a one-copy/one-user basis.

The same sort of sentiment was echoed by Penguin Random House last year. “We have heard–loud and clear–that while libraries appreciate the concept of ‘perpetual access,’ the reality is that circs for many titles drop off dramatically six to eight months after the initial release. This is true especially for fiction bestsellers,” Dye wrote. “Most librarians are telling us they would rather pay lower prices across our front lists and backlists, in exchange for a copy that expires after a given time period. In response to this feedback, we are happy to tell you that we will be lowering our prices on our entire catalogue of adult and children’s fiction and nonfiction titles. Under our new terms, e-books will expire after two years from original purchase date with the aligned pricing lowered for our e-books.”

Click on this link to get the rest of this article!

Last Newsletter till Fall! Stay in touch!

It’s that time again, CMLE members and library community! We take a short break from sending our weekly newsletter over the summer since we know so many of you are in schools (plus, we really appreciate being able to use the time to focus on other projects!!)

Of course, we’ll still be available by emailing admin@cmle.org. We’ll continue to put up articles of interest on our blog, and will be active on social media.

And we’ll continue to release new podcast episodes!! Our last episode of Season Five of Linking Our Libraries will be on June 27th, with a special Bonus Episode on July 4th.

Send us an email, drop by our office, join us for a podcast episode! Come camping with us! We hope you all have a rejuvenating summer filled with lots of good books!

CMLE’s Top Posts of the Year!

It’s always fun for us to take a look back on our most read posts and pages from the past academic year. We like to learn what our community is reading about!

  1. Our most read page was our Book Bites Quickie Podcast! We have so much fun recording this, and we’re SO glad you like to listen! Life needs more book recommendations and this quick podcast is easy to fit into your day 🙂
  2. And going right along with number one is our second place winner – our Reading With Libraries page! Each week we invite a guest to tell us about their favorite book genre. We get to learn, share unique and delicious drink recipes, and gather strategies for Reader’s Advisory! Oh, and gush over books, too.
  3. People like to learn about our podcasts! Linking Our Libraries is in third place. This podcast is focused on improving your leadership abilities and working on specific library skills. We hear from local professionals and cover a fantastic variety of topics!
  4. Episode 209: Young Adult Literature has been a popular post. We had Kate and Dezra from the St. Cloud Public Library as Guest Hosts and it was a very energetic conversation!
  5. Officially our most listened-to podcast episode, Episode 210 Magical Realism is such a cool genre to explore! Our Guest Host Kelly from the St. John’s/St. Ben’s library shared some wonderful book titles with us.
  6. Need some ideas for apps to incorporate into your education work? Our series on the AASL Recommended Apps has detailed suggestions for you, and PBS Kid’s Games was a popular one this year.
  7. We LOVE awarding scholarships! Our page CMLE Scholarships was visited many times (and you should go check it out if you need a scholarship for some professional development!)
  8. Reader’s Advisory is such an important part of working in the library community! This article, part of our Training Tips series, won the number eight spot on our list.
  9. Another Training Tip: Student Library Assistant Training Guide: Shelving Basics made the Top Post cutoff!
  10. It is so rewarding to see advocacy efforts having an impact! Our page Did You Receive A Library Postcard? for the legislators and library stakeholders that we contacted via postcard was definitely sharing the value of libraries this year!