Category Archives: Communication

Communication

Learning About Library Associations: Association of Architecture School Librarians

Library science is an enormous field, home to every interest you could imagine! This means that there are many organizations out there for you to join, in order to connect with other people who share your professional interests.

So even if you work alone in your library, there are other people out there doing work similar to yours! Each week we will highlight a different library association for you to learn more about, and depending on your work, potentially join! You can also check out our page dedicated to Library Associations.

This week we’ll learn about the Association of Architecture School Librarians (AASL). This organization was established in 1979 in order to “advocate for architectural librarianship, build community for members, and foster professional growth through mentoring, partnership, and collaboration.”

Membership to this association is “open to any person or institution interested in the advancement of academic architectural librarianship and architecture education.”

On AASL’s website, you can explore a number of resources. Stay up-to-date with industry news by reading the ACSA news columns or subscribe to their listserv. Apply for a travel or service award. Check out the education and training available from AASL’s Professional Development Committee.

Take a look at the plans for AASL’s upcoming annual conference in Denver, taking place in March. This year’s theme is Identity Imperative, which means the conference “will explore the roles we construct as information professionals associated with architecture and its related fields. We seek to understand ourselves as members of the information profession, members of AASL, and participants of our local communities of practice, education, and cultural institutions. ”

Interested in learning more about becoming a member of AASL? Find more info on their membership page.

 

CMLE, Communication

We need your input: CMLE needs a new name!

Official Office Bear, Orville

CMLE has been making some big changes to our services over the past two to three years; and now we want to re-brand our identity to reflect the organization we are becoming. So we need a new name, and we want your ideas and opinions to make a good decision!

As you may know, CMLE is one of the seven multitype systems in the state of MN. That means we all work to help all types of libraries in our geographic area: schools, publics, academics, and specials, as well as archives and history centers. Our geographic area covers the same territory as the Great River and the East Central public library systems. It’s an opportunity for all of us to work together, to find common solutions to problems we all face, and to always know that we are all part of a larger community of people doing the same kind of work. We do not serve the people in the communities; we serve you guys, and you serve your communities.

We think it’s a pretty great system, and are always looking for new ways we can work to share communication and information across all 300+ members in these 12 counties! (Shhh! Don’t tell the other six systems – but we think our members are pretty clearly the best!) (We may be slightly biased in that assumption, but….)

Our neighboring multitype library system, SAMMIE, is changing their name – and have already decided to change to Prairielands Library Exchange.  Ideally, we would like to do this soon to save the effort of changing names across the state more than once!

We are also working on our Strategic Plan, and are looking at some ideas for branding for that – ideas that will help to guide the work we can do to provide more and better service to our members over the next few years.

So  we are asking for your thoughts and ideas! You can go ahead and suggest some names, or just suggest some words and ideas.  We will work out a selection of name suggestions from these ideas, and take them to the next CMLE Board meeting to see what they think.

Your input is, as always, important in the decisions we make. Our whole purpose is to serve our members; we want you to be active in guiding where we can best put our limited time and resources to provide the best service!

Please fill out the form below. If you want to chat about ideas further, we would be happy to hear from you! Come to our tour of St Cloud State’s library on Jan. 11; come to one of our Office Hours; email ideas; leave them in the comments below; we can set up a time to come visit your library; or just make an appointment to come by our office and chat. (You know we always like to see you!)

Thanks for your ideas! We are looking forward to building another great plan for a few more years of service to our members.

Which of these words to you think are important in the work CMLE does for libraries and archives?(required)

CMLE, Communication

Plan to visit CMLE HQ during our 2018 Office Hours!

A vital part of being a multitype library system like CMLE is that we want to be easily available to our members! You can always email us at admin@cmle.org or call our office, but sometimes it’s nice to be able to have a face-to-face conversation, especially if you need shared excitement for a new project, or sympathy for a challenge you’re experiencing.

That’s why we have Office Hours!! During our Office Hours at CMLE HQ, Mary and Angie will be available to discuss any library ideas or challenges that you are encountering. Usually the Official Office Dog Lady Grey will be onsite also, offering soothing support and accepting attention. 

So, we’re excited to announce our schedule for the first few months of 2018. We’re changing the schedule slightly to make it more possible for members to stop in.

  • January: Mondays from 11am to 1pm
  • February: Tuesdays from 11am to 1pm
  • March: Wednesdays from 11am to 1pm

CMLE HQ is located at: 570 1st St. SE St. Cloud MN 56304. We are in the cmERDC building right next to East Side Target.
We hope to see you soon! Of course, if you need to setup a time to chat (or if you’d like us to visit you) definitely email us at admin@cmle.org and we’ll work something out!

Advocacy, Communication

Net neutrality is sinking fast: Now what do we do?

Network neutrality symbol

Well, as you know – we had a pretty devastating setback on net neutrality. The FCC repealed it a couple of weeks ago. We have been talking about this here on the blog, and on our social media, because this issue is very important for libraries.

(You can scroll down to the end for action steps; or take the scenic route through the whole story!)

What Is Happening????

Net neutrality means that you can go online, on any device using any internet vendor (Verizon, Spectrum, etc) and you get just the same speed as anyone else. You can go to whatever site you want, use whatever browser you want, and do whatever you want when you are there. Your mom might restrict use; but Verizon or Spectrum can’t.

Now that’s gone.

Here is a small example of what that could mean.  I have a Verizon phone, and like many people I’m on it all the time doing tons of things.  Verizon owns Yahoo, so it would now be perfectly allowable for Verizon to only allow me to go to Yahoo. If I want to use Google (because I have Gmail), Verizon could just say “Nope! No Google for you!”

More likely, they would create a special “Google Package” or something: for the low, low price of Whatever They Want dollars a month, I can access my Gmail and search for fun library stuff on Google. For a slightly higher price, I could probably also watch YouTube videos – as they are owned by Google and obviously would not be just accessible through Verizon’s standard service.

Maybe I want to access Google Classroom tools, because I need them for work. Clearly, just getting there is out of the question through a Verizon connection without some extra payments. Hopefully schools will work out a payment plan to allow students and teachers to use it at work, but you will have to figure out your own payment plan if you want to use it at home.

(Keep going past the break. The story gets so much worse for a while – but then your positive action steps wrap it up!)

Continue reading Net neutrality is sinking fast: Now what do we do? →

CMLE, Communication

Taking a short break – but the podcast goes on!

Hybrid vacationWe are taking a little time off next week, to get rested and recharged for the upcoming 2018 excitement! So many great library things will be happening , we can’t wait!

Never fear – we are not completely abandoning you! Our Books and Beverages podcast will come out on its usual Tuesday, Dec. 26. This episode will look at the Holiday genre, and we will be looking at a book (or two) for a bunch of different holidays. Thank you to Ariel from Great River library, for being our Guest Host for this episode!

Enjoy your own end-of-year festivities, and we will see you in January!