Each month we’ll bring you a compiled list of fun national holidays, birthdays of authors, and publication dates of favorite books. You can use these for your own personal use or for some library inspiration! Share what inspired you in the comments.
July is National Blueberry Month!
Other things to celebrate in July. . .
State Library Services is excited to welcome Leah Larson as our new LSTA Coordinator. Leah most recently worked for the Perpich Center at the Crosswinds Arts & Science School Library, providing resource support for faculty and students, as well as educators around the state through Perpich Outreach. She has an MLIS from the University of St. Catherine, and is a certified Minnesota K-12 media specialist. Leah taught ESL, Special Education, and Language Arts for grades 1-8 at public schools in Minnesota, Texas, and New York, and was a media specialist in Richfield prior to starting at Perpich. She has led numerous professional development workshops and cohorts for teachers and media specialists on equity in education, and literature as a lens for teaching and learning about culture. In addition to her work with LSTA, Leah will bring her school library expertise to a number of different projects. Leah can be contacted at leah.larson@state.mn.us or 651-582-8805.
Circulation, visits, program attendance, patron satisfaction…these are some of the many measures commonly collected by public librarians. But how well do we understand what measures tell the most meaningful stories of today’s libraries? During the first webinar in the three-part Measure that Matter series, the landscape of major public library surveys was scanned, and ways to consider how library data could be used more productively in the future were considered. The second webinar explored more deeply the concepts of sampling, data types, and data management. The third webinar will look toward the future, considering what data public librarians should collect to demonstrate their impact. Speakers both within and outside the library field will provide multiple perspectives on meaningful measures. Register today to attend the webinar.
Save the Date: Capturing Imaginations, Building Skills Conference
The Minnesota STEM Network and Ignite Afterschool are teaming up again to offer their second joint conference. The two-day event November 29-30, 2017, at the University of Minnesota Continuing Education Conference Center, will bring people together to ensure every young person in Minnesota has access to high-quality STEM education and an opportunity to build 21st century skills. Join us as we investigate, connect, and advance formal and informal STEM education and workforce development. We will share registration information and the request for session proposals when they are available later this summer.
(From Minitex!)
“March is often our busiest month in Minitex Resource Sharing. For staff responsible for retrieving and processing items at our many campus libraries, it is a daily sprint. On an average day in March our staff search for about 360 requests. However, on Monday, March 20, 2017 there were 668 requests waiting to be printed, retrieved, and processed at campus locations. This was not going to be our normal sprint, but a marathon! In order to maintain our 24-hour turnaround time, staff from other areas of Resource Sharing pitched in.
Resource Sharing has four satellite offices, in addition to Andersen Library, located across the Twin Cities campus of the University of Minnesota:
There are twenty-three different library collections connected to these four satellite offices. At the campus libraries, staff are responsible for printing, retrieving, and processing the requests. In some libraries, we do this three times a day. The busiest location is Wilson Library where the staff is responsible for retrieving materials from ten collections. On March 20, 2017, over 60%, or about 400 requests, were sent to the Wilson office.
For the month of March 2017, our campus libraries staff filled 93% of all requests they received. In our Wilson Library office 75% were filled with loans, and in our Bio-Medical Library office, 75% were filled with copies. This is reflective of the types of materials held by these libraries. In addition to working with technology to print, scan, and update requests, the library assistants develop working relationships with subject librarians whose assistance makes it easier to locate obscure or hard-to-find items for our patrons.
We survived and processed the deluge of 668 requests! Who knows what that tomorrow might bring?”
You know how much we like to hang out with our members (and other library friends!); and we miss you when things are slower in the summertime!
After our recent poll to see what things people might want to do to gather and chat libraries (and other fun stuff!) this summer, we are setting up a few events. Our top vote-getters in different categories were for dinner and tea time, and to have meals/chatting instead of discussions or postcard parties. Our top locations people want to go were St Cloud and Cambridge. So we are starting with these, but can expand these if people want to have more opportunities to get together and chat about library stuff!
There were also a number of votes from people who just wanted an opportunity to drop into CMLE’s Headquarters (570 1st Street SE, St Cloud, MN 56304). So we are setting up HQ Office Hours! Of course, members are always welcome to drop in to chat about things or to come by and ask focused questions about projects, planning, and any other library topic at any time. (We love guests!) This will just provide a definite time where we will be in the office, and ready to chat with you!
Starting Wednesday, July 12, and every other Wednesday after that (we define this as: all Wednesdays with an even numbered date), we will be in the office from 11:00 to 1:00, and ready to chat about writing policies, working through materials selections, negotiating with vendors, planning your website or social media, going to conferences as a presenter or an attendee, zines/manga/pop culture coolness, or anything else you want to discuss! Would you like to just come say hi for a minute, and put a face to our names? Do it! You can test out the bike desks, see the plants and ever-changing seasonal decorations, and check in on Orville The Official Office Bear! No need to call ahead, just drop in and we will be happy to see you.
And of course, if you want to casually chat at other times, just check in and we will set up a time. We are not formal here – we just want to hang out and talk about libraries!
We are looking forward to seeing you this summer, and hearing all about your adventures!
Maybe you’ve already heard about the LibraryThing app? It’s been around for a few years as an app for iOS devices only, but they have recently launched their app for Android! (And it’s free!)
This app sounds like a great way to keep your personal library collection organized. And it even allows you to add media like DVDs and CDs. A few more features include:
Check out their fun video here:
Do you use this app? We’re interested to hear how you like it! Leave a comment and let us know!