Category Archives: General

Academic, Check this out:, General, School Media Specialist, Tech, Training

Call for webinar proposals: Digital Pedagogy in the classroom

digital_leaders
Think Digital!

CMLE Members – we continue to pass on assorted calls for your participation in the profession. You have a valuable voice and perspective to share – yours! We want to help you share your voice and your experience with others. Many of you are doing work that will fit right into this webinar series, and it would be great to share that! Of course perfection is not required here, just a willingness to help other library people. (And don’t forget: this kind of thing looks great on your annual review!)

As always, CMLE is here to help you with your application, to look it over before you submit it, or even just to give encouragement as you do this!

The LIRT Teaching Learning, and Technology Committee is soliciting proposals for our 2017 webinar series entitled
“Digital Pedagogy: How we use technology in the classroom”

Join the LIRT TLTC for an exciting three-part webinar series to be held on February 17, 24, and March 3 from 11am-12:30pm CDT. The series is designed to encourage an interactive and multi-faceted view of digital pedagogy and inspire engaging conversations surrounding the ways in which we integrate technology into our instructional activities from three broad perspectives:

Part 1: Introduction and examples

Part 2: Best practices in instructional design

Part 3: Best practices in assessment

Proposal Deadline: Friday, December 9, 2016
Applicants will be notified by Friday, January 13, 2017
Please fill out this form to submit a proposal: http://bit.ly/2fvamar
If you have questions, please contact Cinthya Ippoliti at cinthya.ippoliti@okstate.edu

Thank you! Submitted on behalf of the committee:

Alyssa Archer, Amy Chen, Joe Eshelman, Mandi Goodsett, and Kenneth Orenic

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

Upcoming Webinar: Engaged Planning – Ask What You Can Do For Your Rural Community

CMLE Headquarters is working to provide everyone in our system with all kinds of training to help you hone your skills in this every-changing profession! We maintain a Continuing Education calendar on our website, we offer regular in-person and online training sessions, and we will direct you toward the many other valuable opportunities available to you.

Many CMLE libraries, of all types, provide services to rural areas. This webinar, from WebJunction, can help you to think through your services in a way that will be beneficial to your community members.

There is no cost to attend, and materials will be available after the webinar. So sign up now, and discover some additional tools for reaching out to your rural community!

Engaged Planning: Ask What You Can Do For Your Rural Community

A webinar presented in collaboration with ARSL outlining the steps of an engaged planning process, to align library capabilities with community needs and aspirations.

Your community needs the library, and planning for the future of your library begins with understanding the community and their aspirations. Once you understand what your rural community wants and needs, you can assess how the library can help them. In this webinar, understand the important steps of this engaged planning process, including internal assessment, data collection and analysis, trustee involvement, and community conversations. Learn what it means for your library to “turn outward” to secure its place at the heart of your community.

This webinar is hosted in collaboration with the Association for Rural and Small Libraries.

Presented by: Cindy Fesemyer, Director, Columbus (WI) Public Library, population 5,000

Tweet: #wjwebinar

Check this out:, CMLE, General, Visits

Visiting the Milaca Community Library

Visiting the Milaca library is like stopping by a friend’s house, one who has comfy chairs, cool art, and lots of cool books and material! The library had a lot of patrons who clearly agreed with this idea, as patrons were all over the library and apparently enjoying the facility. This kind of community library, clearly connecting with patron needs, is always a valuable asset to any community!

One of the highlights of the library is the center of the library, with a recessed art displays. This art is a visual representation of the early history of the area, and schools can sometimes bring students by at just the right time in their study of local history to actually see this visual display! The murals were created by Deborah Morrison Vriesen in 2007. The funding came from the Milaca Friends of the Library, and a grant from the East Central Arts Council. This kind of community art in a library is a valuable way to convey information in a visual format – all part of our mission to share information with our communities!

book-display
Misty’s book recommendations!

And of course, as in all libraries, there are also paper books available on the shelves! This display is set up to help people looking for a new read or some new directions in theme, to find something that will be interesting to them. Misty is our recommender here, and I’m putting a couple of these onto my own to-read list – thanks!

Continue reading Visiting the Milaca Community Library →

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

December CMLE book group picks

'Cozy Cabin', United States, Wisconsin, Phillips
Get cozy in December with our Goodreads books!

If you have some time over the weekend, and have already finished up our November book group selections, we present – for your reading enjoyment – our December books!

In our CMLE Librarian Professionals discussion group, we will read “The Happiness Project” by Gretchen Rubin.

In December, our Monthly Topic is stress management, and this book can be a way for you to get a handle on that. And we all start thinking about New Year’s resolutions as we get closer, so this book can help you to focus some of your energy on thinking about happiness goals!

Gretchen Rubin spends a year thinking about happiness, and how to make her already pretty-good life better. This was a NYT best seller for two years, and if you read it when it first came out, you might want to give it a re-read with some new perspective. She followed this up with several other books on happiness, and strategies for making your life happier.

She and her sister also create a weekly podcast with tidbits of advice on happiness-building activities you can take on. After I listened to “Podcast 91: Delete a Soul-Sucking App” I deleted Twitter from my phone, because it was making me upset to read my feed – but I couldn’t stop myself from spending time following every distressing discussion. I have to say I was much happier afterward!

I have picked up several other useful tips on increasing happiness – a very worthy goal in my eyes – from the podcast, and from the Happier series of books from Gretchen. If you have not explored in this area, try out her first book (this one!), or follow her blog, or listen to the podcast. See if consciously thinking about happiness strategies can make you happier this month! Tell us all about your experiences!

In our CMLE Librarians Enjoying Books discussion group, we are reading “The Strange Library” by Haruki Murakami.

December is a hectic month for everyone, so we want to be respectful of your time and give you a quick book. At 96 pages, this is the shortest of Murakami’s books translated into English from his native Japanese. (“What I Talk About When I Talk About Running” is also pretty short, but not much information on librarians!)

If you have not yet read any of his books, you have an interesting adventure ahead of you! If you have already delved into the somewhat surrealistic world he creates, you will find many of his typical images here: sheep, cats, jazz, whisky.

This is not a library you would aspire to for yourself, but sometimes it’s good to get out there and try some new ways of thinking. Holiday times can be a challenge for everyone, so breaking up your traditions (and traditions of holiday-induced stress!) with an interesting and odd little look into a new world might be just the thing to inspire you to enjoy your lives and your holiday traditions!

Have you read other Murakami books? They are nearly impossible to describe, but what was your favorite part? Were there books you particularly liked? If this is your first time in the Murakami world: welcome! There are adventures to be had here, and things to explore.

We are looking forward to hearing your responses!