Category Archives: General

Metronet Wind Down: Leadership Lessons from the NFL

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Some rights reserved by ElvertBarnes

With football season coming to a close, you may be wondering what your library can learn from your endless hours of watching football. You may be surprised, but Amy and Robin say there is a lot you can learn about leadership from the NFL.

Develop your leadership lens using lessons from the NFL. A leadership lens is a tool that allows you to view leadership decisions and scenarios from other fields and apply it to libraries and librarianship. Develop your leadership skills by relating leadership successes and failures of the National Football League (NFL) to your library. Analogies from recent NFL seasons will help us think about future library scenarios that we may face. We will use examples from the NFL to illuminate leadership issues.

Amy Springer, Government and Business Librarian, College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University, and Robin Ewing, Reference Services Coordinator, St. Cloud State University, will present this interesting, fun program at ACRL in April, but for those of you who can’t make ACRL, you’re in luck. Amy and Robin will present this program as a Metronet Wind Down and you’re invited! Library staff in all different types of libraries are welcome to attend! No RSVP required.

Cost: Free

Date: March 7, 2013

Time: 3:30-5:00 p.m.

Location: Metronet Board Room 320, 1619 Dayton Ave, St. Paul

Directions: Google Map. Parking is free.

Contact: Metronet 

2013 Notable Adult Book List is Out!

SpeBookNotableListReference and User Services Association (RUSA) has announced its selections for the 2013 Notable Books List!  

Since 1944, the Notable Books Council has selected an annual list of 25 important books for the nation’s adult readers. This list includes fiction, nonfiction, and poetry books identified by RUSA members and readers’ advisory experts from around the country. Browse through the list to see which of these books you may want to buy or borrow for in your library.

Contract Scorecard for EBooks!

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Some rights reserved by Kodomut

Recommended Ed Tech Tool

If you are like many libraries, a larger number of collections are becoming electronic books or eBooks. With several companies offering eBooks for sale, it can be difficult to know what your library may want or need in the next eBook contract? ALA (American Library Association) recently released a report titled, “EBook Business Models: A Scorecard for Public Libraries”.  This report examines fifteen specific eBook licensing variables often seen in library contracts. Click here for more information (pdf). This tool may be helpful in crafting your next list of must haves!

Women’s Author Event!

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Join the Quatrefoil Library and The Jean-Nickolaus Tretter Collection in celebrating our favorite local authors on Saturday, March 16th from 2:00-5:00 PM at University of Minnesota’s Elmer Andersen Library (room 120).

Scheduled to appear: 

  • Ellen Hart 
  • Catherine Friend
  • Catherine Lundoff
  • Ellen Lansky
  • Rachel Gold
  • Jessie Chandler

For more information visit www.qlibrary.org.

For information on directions and parking visit:  http://www1.umn.edu/twincities/maps/AnderLib/

National Day to Unplug is March 1st!

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Some rights reserved by photosteve101

You may want to start to condition yourself for a day to power down and see if there are benefits for you and your family in pulling the plug on your electronics. What I really like about this blog post are the 15 activities to try on, before, and after the big day.

As the doctor says, enjoy and give these unplugged tidbits a try! The Huff Post Tech, Feb.17, 2013