Category Archives: General

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Legislative Update

This update is from Elaine Keefe, MLA/MEMO Library Legislative Lobbyist

Data Privacy:  Under current law, records linking public library users to library materials they have searched for or borrowed that are owned by the library are private. HF 695, our bill extending the same protection to electronic data owned by a private vendor and licensed by a public library (e.g., e-books) was introduced last Monday by Rep. Steve Simon (DFL – Hopkins), chair of the House Data Practices Subcommittee.  The companion bill, SF 745, will be introduced on Monday, February 25 by Senator Kari Dzeidzic (DFL – Minneapolis).  Senator Ron Latz (DFL – St. Louis Park), chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a co-author.

Homework Help:  Our bill to fund a statewide contract to make a free online homework help service available statewide will be introduced as SF 781 on Monday, February 25.  The chief author is Senator John Hoffman (DFL – Champlin). Co-authors are Sen. Alice Johnson (DFL – Spring Lake Park), Sen. LeRoy Stumpf (DFL – Plummer), Sen. Vicki Jensen (DFL – Owatonna) and Sen. Carla Nelson (R – Rochester).  The House version will be introduced soon.  Rep. Kathy Brynaert (DFL – Mankato) has signed on as the chief author.  If any of these legislators represent you, please write to thank them.

Minitex and MnLINK:  We have secured chief authors in both bodies for our bill to increase funding for Minitex and MnLINK.  Rep. Ryan Winkler (DFL – Golden Valley) will carry our bill in the House and Senator Kent Eken (DFL – Twin Valley) will carry our bill in the Senate.  I am currently recruiting co-authors, with the goal of getting the bills introduced no later than Monday, March 4.

Legacy:  Last Wednesday Mark Ranum made a presentation before the House Legacy Committee about what regional public libraries have done with Legacy funding received to date and about our request for funding for the upcoming biennium (FY 14-15).  It was very well received by the committee, resulting in extended remarks by committee members about the benefits of Legacy programs provided by public libraries and of libraries in general.  Reps. Mary Murphy (DFL – Hermantown), Leon Lillie (DFL – N. St. Paul) and John Ward (DFL – Brainerd) were especially effusive.

State Economic Forecast:  The next forecast will be released on Thursday February 28.  It is widely expected that the forecast will show improvement from the forecast released in December that projected a $1.1 million deficit at the conclusion of the FY 14-15 biennium.  It may also show an increase in the forecasted surplus for the current biennium, which would result in a further repayment of the education funding shift.  Governor Dayton will release his revised budget recommendations about two weeks after the forecast is released.

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, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

A Snapshot of Illiteracy Rates in the U.S.

Blog post suggestion submitted by CMLE Member Representative                                                                        –  Wanda Erickson, Media Specialist, Upsala Area Schools

In February, Online Courses posted a blog regarding literacy rates (rather illiteracy rates) in the United States. You may be surprised to see which city has the lowest and/or highest literacy? Click here for a snapshot of these findings.

Illiterate-America-8002

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Video Production Has Begun!

Some rights reserved by M4D GROUP
Some rights reserved by M4D GROUP

A small group of high school media specialists and college librarians continue to work with CMLE  on our attempts to Bridge Information Literacy Efforts Across Libraries. Recently, we crafted and implemented a college-student survey that basically asked college students: Based on your experience, if you could tell a high-school student three things to help them prepare for college-level research, what would it be?

We received over 400 responses from students at four local colleges and  69 respondents indicated a willingness to appear in a video. Hard choices were made to arrive at whom to film and we have begun  production of a short video capturing some of the responses. We hope to make the video available widely through YouTube. The video will be used for various purposes, and we hope to use it as a conversation starter at an upcoming event that is open to all types of libraries in late spring as a springboard to new “bridging”activities next Fall. Are you curious about the work of the three media specialists and three college librarians to date? Go to http://tinyurl.com/bjsugro to read the executive summary of the group’s work. Watch for further updates on this exciting work!

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

Two ELM Webinar Sessions

ELM

As part of an on-going series, ELM is offering the following webinars this March:

Intro to ELM for Teachers: English Language Arts [Session 4]
Tuesday, March 5, 3:30-4:00 PM
This 30-minute webinar will introduce the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) and discuss ways English language arts teachers from across the state use ELM in the classroom. The session is geared toward classroom teachers looking for trustworthy online content to support classroom preparation, lesson plan building, and student projects.

Intro to ELM for Teachers: Education Professional Development [Session 5]
Tuesday, March 12, 3:30-4:00 PM
This 30-minute webinar will introduce the Electronic Library for Minnesota (ELM) and discuss ways educators from across the state use ELM to stay current in their field. The session is geared toward classroom teachers looking for education-related news, research, and best practices.

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

Free Language Materials

photo
Photo by Deb Craft

Deb Craft the Media Specialist for St. Michael-Albertville High School has free teaching materials titled, “El Chino De Hoy,” or “Chinese Today,” a bilingual edition Chinese with Spanish.  These brand new materials include workbooks, CDs (Levels I, II, and III) plus teacher manuals.  If you would be interested in any of these items please contact Deb directly by email at debracr@stma.k12.mn.us.