Category Archives: General

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Weekly Review 2/25/16

CMLE Updates: State & Regional News
– ECRL has a new website! More
– Results from Extended Contract Days poll More
– Featured Service: CMLE Grants page More
– CMLE does events! Take a look at this year’s lineup More

Upcoming Events and Registration Information
– Seats still available for CMLE’s Spring Author Event at North Folk Winery! Register NOW! More
– Notable Dates for your Noggin: March 2016 More

 Resources You Can Use
– Tips for library newsletters More
– Special librarians: A Button Museum! More
– AASL Recommended App: Digital Public Library of America More

 Tech Bits and Ideas
– The top 25 idiotic passwords More

 Food For Thought
– Ever heard of your media center as “third place?” More

Just for Fun
– Harry Potter-themed classroom More
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Notable Dates for your Noggin: March 2016

Calendar BannerEach 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!

March is Woman’s History Month. Other things to celebrate in March. . .

March
 2  Dr. Seuss’s birthday (1904)
 Read Across America/Dr. Seuss Day
 Old Stuff Day
 3  National Anthem Day
 4  National Grammar Day
 6  Henry IV Part One first performed (1660)
 8  National Proofreading Day
 12  Girl Scouts Day
 16  Freedom of Information Day
 19  Let’s Laugh Day
 20  Lois Lowry’s birthday (1937)
 Louis Sachar’s birthday (1954)
 25  Tolkien Reading Day
 26  Robert Frost’s birthday (1874)
 30  Jon Hassler’s birthday (1933)
 Pencil Day

Did we miss anything?  Let us know if we did!

For our calendar of library events, including conferences and library days, check out our Events/Initiatives page.

And for more Notable Dates for Your Noggin, check out our Notable Dates page.

General, Public, School Media Specialist

AASL Recommended App: Digital Public Library of America (DPLA)

dplaThe American Association of School Librarians (AASL) came out with their 25 Best Apps for Teaching & Learning earlier this year. The apps were chosen because they foster innovation, creativity, active participation, and collaboration.

The DPLA suite of apps “brings together the riches of America’s libraries, archives, museums, and cultural heritage sites making them freely available to students and teachers.” What better place to find free, quality content for your students! Looking for more ideas? AASL suggests getting students to develop their own apps. You could even hold a DPLA Hackathon!

The app is available on iOS and Android devices. AASL recommends it for Middle and High School students.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Take a look at our CMLE events!

Snippets and Sneak Peaks: Winter EditionCMLE staff are often asked what CMLE does now that it no longer provides the interlibrary loan service that ended  in 2012. Coming up on 10 years of flat funding, CMLE needs to choose carefully what it can start and what it can sustain. With a small staff of 1.5 people, we do lots of things, one being your receipt of our Weekly Review email each Thursday. In order to send the email, our staff comb through hundreds of bits of information to identify the best to help you manage the clutter in your inbox. We often take complicated subjects and distill them down into manageable bites too. In addition, CMLE offers events, some of a technical nature, and some more lighthearted to provide you time to socialize and build relationships with your peers. Take a look at our events lineup this year….

ELM Expo in partnership with Metronet and Minitex; a full day of face-to-face learning tips and tricks of using ELM: Took place November 6, 2015

Snippets & Sneak Peeks book talk event in partnership with East Central Region of ITEM and Barnes & Noble: Took place Jan. 12, 2016

Genealogy Research Workshop in partnership (for space and laptops) with Great River Regional Library: February 2, 2016 (postponed due to weather, coming soon)

Spring Author Event with Erin Hart and Paddy O’Brien at North Folk Winery in Cambridge in partnership with Scout & Morgan Books: March 10, 2016. Register now! Deadline is March 4th!

New Library Spring Tour and Book Talk event in partnership with St. Cloud Community and Technical College, date is pending, watch our communications.

Supervisory Nuts and Bolts Workshop, coming soon. Have you ever noticed you learned about theory in “library school” but not many practical skills or tips about supervising without authority? The date for this event will be picked based on the wishes of those who are interested in attending.

In addition, CMLE  makes contributions to programming of other organizations in order to provide you with a better attendee experience. Three examples include the ITEM Fall Conference, MLA Fall Conference, and the EdCamp MidMN right here in St. Cloud, Minnesota. If you ever need financial assistance to attend any library-related event or conference, please consider the CMLE Scholarship program. Yes, that is another of our many services which strive to respond to regional needs. The full services list is on our site.

Photo credit: Maria Burnham

 

 

General, School Media Specialist

Harry Potter-themed classroom

HPHere is a great idea to break up the monotony of the winter months. A middle-school teacher in Oklahoma City has transformed her classroom into a Harry Potter-themed room. Most of these ideas can also be used in the school media center to capture students’ attention.

She begins the adventure by papering her door to look like a brick wall and the entry to the Hogwarts Express, Platform 9¾. She also made her room into the different school houses including a potions station and a three-headed (stuffed) dog. She also has a good stack of Harry Potter novels handy for the students to read. What ideas have you done with this fun Harry Potter theme?

Harry Potter classroom

http://visual.ly/visual-summary-harry-potter