Category Archives: General

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

Educational Trends: Why Edcamp?

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EdcampTake control of your learning!

The Edcamp Foundation was formed in December 2011 to assist teachers and other stakeholders in organizing edcamps. The vision of the Edcamp Foundation is to “promote organic, participant-driven professional development for K-12 educators worldwide.”

What is an edcamp?  It is a low-cost/free user-generated conference designed to promote professional development for K-12 educators. Edcamps operate without keynote speakers or vendor booths. Sessions are planned the day of the event, as participants volunteer to be presenters on a topic of their choosing.  This process encourages attendees to join or lead a peer conversation that meets their professional needs and/or interests.  Technology is a common area of interest along with pedagogy and practical examples in instructional use of modern tools. If you would like to learn more about edcamps, Edutopia recently posted an article (April 2013) titled, Why Edcamps? It provides additional information regarding the basic structure outlined in the edcamp model and highlights what makes these events unique to other conferences. Click here to read the full article.

Would you like to participate? Educamp is coming to the Twin Cities on October 12th.  Click here to learn more about this Minnesota event.

If you have participated in one of the more than 250 edcamp events that have occurred over the last 3 years; we would like to hear from you.  Feel free to share your experience with our followers in the comment section below!

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist

Free Audiobooks for Young Readers!

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Some rights reserved by Bigbadvoo
Some rights reserved by Bigbadvoo

Has your library participated in Sync?

Between May 30th  – August 21st  Sync will be giving away two free audiobook downloads, each week, for listeners 13 years of age or older.  This service began in 2010 to promote literacy among young adults.   As an alternative to listening to music, these downloads are MP3 formats that operate through Over Drive’s Media Console and are compatible with both Mac and Windows operating systems.  Once the title is downloaded, it can be listened to at any time. However, they will only be made available, for download, for only 7 days.

How Do I Sign-up? Go to the right column and sign-up to get notifications of when the audiobook downloads are available by text message, email newsletter, or by simply following the SYNC blog.  Please note that signing up for these alerts will not send you the titles.  The alerts will only tell you when and where the title is available to download. Click here for a schedule.

Tip:  If you would like to promote this free service in your library, the Sync site offers a toolkit for Librarians & Educators with a host of resources. 

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

MNLib Legislative Update: Call to Action!

**This legislative update was originally received in two emails written by Elaine Keefe, lobbyist for MLA/MEMO, slight modifications by Patricia Post** (Received on Sunday, May 12th at 11:57 p.m. & Monday, May 13th at 9:55 a.m.)

It’s crunch time.  The Legislature must adjourn on May 20 — one week from Monday!

Budget Deal:  Sunday the Governor and legislative leaders announced that they have agreed on a budget deal. The deal includes significant increases for E-12 education ($475 million) and higher education ($250 million) and a smaller cut in health & human services than legislators had proposed (a $50 million cut rather than $150 million). The school funding shift will be repaid. To pay for all of this and cover the $627 million deficit, income taxes will be increased on couples with taxable income of $250,000 and on individuals with taxable income of $150,000. Sales taxes will be expanded to some business services but not to consumer services or clothing. The cigarette tax will be increased. Details will be worked out by the various budget conference committees.

E-12 Education:  The conference committee met for the first time on Thursday (9th).  They adopted several identical provisions, including two items important to MLA/MEMO.

  1. The change in terminology from “grant” to “aid” for RLBSS and Multi-type funding
  2. Clarification that total operating capital funds can be used for computer hardware, software and annual licensing fees

Higher Education:  The conference committee will meet for the first time on Monday (13th). The funding increase for Minitex/MnINK that is included in the Senate higher ed bill but not in the House bill has a better chance now that the agreed-upon target ($250 million) is closer to the Senate target ($260 million) than the House target ($150 million).  Our Senate author, Senator Kent Eken (DFL – Twin Valley) is on the conference committee and told me he intends to fight hard for the increase included in the Senate bill.  If you haven’t yet contacted the conferees to urge them to support the increase in the Senate bill, please do so.

Legacy:  The House Legacy bill passed on the floor on Friday. The Senate Legacy bill was unveiled in the Senate Legacy Subcommittee on Thursday.  It includes $300,000 per year for the Minnesota Digital Library (the amount requested) and $1 million per year for regional public libraries.  This is a huge reduction from the $3 million per year currently allocated to regional public libraries.  Senator Dick Cohen, chair of both the Senate Finance Committee and the Legacy Subcommittee of the Senate Finance Committee, has historically opposed Legacy funding for libraries. His position has been that only those who advocated for the constitutional amendment should share in the funds generated.  Other recipients can be viewed as interlopers, including libraries.  Senator Cohen’s goal has been that 50% of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund is to be allocated to the State Arts Board.  Currently about 43% is allocated to the State Arts Board.  The Senate bill includes a provision requiring that in the future 50% of the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund shall be allocated to the State Arts Board.  The initial version of the Senate Legacy bill distributed the funds to regional public libraries under the RLBSS formula, as has been done the past two biennia.  I subsequently spoke with Senator Cohen and he agreed to amend the bill to change the formula in accordance with the MLAMEMO platform and to require that the funds be distributed in 10 equal payments.  That amendment was adopted on Friday and the bill was passed out of the subcomittee. It will be heard in the full Senate Finance Committee on Monday, May 13.

A number of you have contacted me this morning to ask what you can do to respond to the disappointing amount of funding for regional public libraries in the Senate Legacy bill.

  • Please contact your senators to express concern about this reduction.  Ask them to raise the issue with Senator Cohen. 
  • We are not going to change Senator Cohen’s mind.  However, if it’s clear that his Senate colleagues are unhappy about the level of funding for libraries it will be more likely that the Senate conferees will agree to the House appropriation when the bill gets to conference committee.
  • When the conference committee is named later this week, I will send out their contact information and ask you to contact them.

Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
fax 651-293-1709
cell 612-590-1244
elaine@capitolhillassoc.com

Academic, Check this out:, General, Public, School Media Specialist

2013: Where Have the Media Specialists Gone?

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Some rights reserved by Taber Andrew
Some rights reserved by Taber Andrew

This is the third year I have been pulling the Minnesota Department of Education data and studying the slow decline of school library media specialists in our twelve county region. I have no answers for fixing this problem, but sharing the data is my attempt to engage people in helping me think of solutions. If there is inadequate media specialist staffing in high schools, are students going to be prepared with the skills they need to be successful in college? Will middle schoolers be prepared to do high school work, and when students have no library program at school, are they simply going to the public library for assistance? Are the public libraries funded or staffed to absorb this work on a large scale? Everyone is stretched for resources, so we all need to do our part. So, without further ado, here is data for Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd and Wright counties. Please use the comment field in this post as needed.

  • 53 individual schools (28 percent) in Central MN have no licensed media specialist (compared to 48 last year)
  • 25 schools (47 percent) percent of the 53 schools are middle, secondary or high schools
  • 28 elementary schools have no media specialist, yet we are hell bent on demonstrating reading proficiency by 3rd grade!
  • Fourteen of our school districts have no media specialist in any school in the district at all (compared to nine last year)
  • The great news is that 32 percent of our schools have a full time media specialist. Let’s applaud those school administrators for understanding the value of maintaining a professionally staffed media center.

CMLE will use this data in its advocacy work, in targeting its programming, and in working statewide to bring attention to this growing problem. We all need to think about how we can change this trend so that all students have the benefit of a well-maintained, relevant, and properly staffed school media center.

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

Retirements or Staffing Changes?

Some rights reserved by ferasdelaing
Some rights reserved by ferasdelaing

This is the time of year we ask for your help in identifying retirements or staffing changes that will happen at the end of this academic year. Unfortunately, if we are not made aware of these changes, we often  have no way of telling that we need to make contact with  new recruits in the Fall. Sometimes locations simply fall off of our radar as a result of these communication breakdowns.  Needless to say, we also want to  give recognition to  proud retirees too! They have worked hard and deserve some recognition before the end of the year. Thanks in advance for any information you can provide about changes in your setting or in other settings. Once you give us the tip, we are happy to track down the details! Send email to cmle@stcloudstate.edu and use subject line Staffing Changes.

P.S. We would be happy to shine the light on other staff accomplishments too, so don’t be shy about sharing those too. Did someone get promoted or receive a special award?  Use the same email address, use subject line Staff Accomplishments. We will compile and share through our communication streams soon.