Category Archives: Resources

Resources, Training

Training Tips: Talk about inspiring books!

It’s January!

It’s time to make resolutions!

(Or goals. Or reflections. Or none of these. You be you.)

Probably most of us in the library world resolve to read books, read more fun books, more diverse books, more books of all sorts.

As a side note: you may want to set up an account on Goodreads, and let them track your reading progress toward a personal goal. I do like doing this – it’s fun for me to see books I’ve read over the past few years!

So, yes. Read books. More. Diverse. Fun. All of these are good things.

And today I want to encourage you all to think about books that inspire you. Books that made you sit down and say “Huh” or “Wowza!” or something else.

Was it fiction? Was it nonfiction? What made you inspired and made you think about something in a new way?

These are the books you can share with your community! Tell them about books all the time, yes. But telling them about a book that had a definite impact on you, one that helped you to try new things, think new thoughts – THAT’S a book that will be easy to share and other people will want to read!

Talk about the books that inspired you, and ask other people about their books. You can start a conversation, learn some new things, and share some of your stuff. It’s good all around!

And we would like you to tell us about books that have inspired you! Email us at admin @ cmle.org, tweet to us at  @CMLELibs, message us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/CMLELibraries/, or stop by our office to talk with us! And feel free to comment below!

We are going to start featuring some books that have inspired our members in future articles, so start sending us some titles now!

Inspire us today! Share your best book ideas, so we can spread the word!!

 

Communication, Resources, School Media Specialist

School and Rural Libraries, Check Out This Grant Opportunity!

Do you work in a school library? Do you work in a rural library? Listen up!!

We know our members all across our twelve counties are doing fantastic work in their libraries. Now think about how many more awesome things you could be doing if you had more money!! IMLS can potentially help you with their new grant program. They are accepting applications now through Feb. 25th 2019.

Find more information below and if you want to apply, please remember that CMLE is absolutely here to help you with the process! 

“The Institute of Museum and Library Services has launched a new special initiative, Accelerating Promising Practices for Small Libraries (APP), and is accepting grant applications now through February 25, 2019.

This new funding opportunity is designed specifically to strengthen the ability of small and rural libraries, archives, and related organizations to serve their communities, and awards sizes range from $10,000 to $50,000.”

There are three categories of these APP grants:

  • Transforming School Library Practice – School libraries support learning and the development of critical thinking, creativity, and collaboration skills. IMLS is interested in furthering how school library professionals can serve as integral instructional partners to classroom teachers. Grant projects could include programs and services that prepare students for success in college, career, and life, or foster early, digital, information, health, financial, media, civic, and other types of literacies.
  • Community Memory – This project category centers on engaging local communities in the collection, documentation, and preservation of their local histories, experiences, and identities.
  • Digital Inclusion – This category focuses on projects that support the role libraries play in promoting digital literacy, providing internet access, and enabling community engagement through civic data and civic technology.

Read more about the grant here. If you’re interested in learning more, IMLS is offering FREE pre-application webinars to answer questions with program staff. They will be recorded to access at any time. Find out more here.

Resources, School Media Specialist

Need some ELM promotional brochures?

If you are a library or media center person in Minnesota, you hopefully are very familiar with the resource ELM: Electronic Library for Minnesota!

ELM is an online library that can be used by any Minnesota resident. It provides “access to magazine, journal, newspaper, and encyclopedia articles, eBooks (online books), and other information resources.

ELM provides information on a vast array of topics, including consumer information, arts and humanities, current events, health, science, social science, politics, business, and more.”

We hope you are taking full advantage of all that ELM has to offer in your school library! But maybe you’d like an easy way to share with teachers, parents, or visitors to your library just how valuable ELM is? We have a large number of promotional ELM brochures that list all the different databases, catalogs, and collections that ELM provides for Minnesota residents. These brochures also give some basic information on other available statewide library resources that might be useful to you or your students.

If you would like some of these brochures, please let us know in the comments or email us at admin@cmle.org. We can arrange a time for you pick them up, or depending on the distance we could potentially bring them to you. Thanks!

Resources

Open Access Week: Resources and Ways to Celebrate!

We are right in the middle of International Open Access Week!
This year’s theme is “Designing Equitable Foundations for Open Knowledge.” During the week of Oct. 22nd – 28th, the academic and research communities make a special effort to share with the wider world the benefits of Open Access.

This week is also a time to “help inspire wider participation in helping to make Open Access a new norm in scholarship and research.”

What is Open Access, and why is it important? 
Open Access refers “the free, immediate, online access to the results of scholarly research, and the right to use and re-use those results as you need.” Having this ease of access to information can have a huge impact in the fields of medicine, education, and the world as a whole. Get more information at OpenAccessWeek.org.

This quick video does a good job of explaining how Open Access is beneficial and important:

And since we are library people, the more information the better, right? Here are some resources we found that get into Open Access in more detail:

  • ACRL has this Scholarly Communication Toolkit full of articles, links to organizations, videos, best practices, and more, all discussing Open Access Policies and Publishing. They even have a section to help you debunk common Open Access myths!
  • On IFLA’s Library Policy and Advocacy blog, they share the article “How open access can help achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)” which highlights the important role of the library community.
  • In this article from American Libraries, check out some stats regarding the effort to allow free access to scholarly research.
  • This article from Canadian Science Publishing called “Who Needs Open Access” explains the reasons behind the movement and also discusses many of the challenges that need to be handled.

CMLE also has a podcast episode on the topic of Open Access featuring CMLE member Susan Schleper from the Centracare Hospital Library in St. Cloud. Listen here:

Resources, School Media Specialist

Check out this great resource for educators: AskMN!

If you work in a school media center that is part of the Great River Regional Library System, this resource could prove very useful to you! Great River’s website has this Ask a Librarian page, which offers a ton of different and unexpected services. It includes links to a form where you can “book” a librarian for a 30-60 minute in-person meeting and information for how to contact (including Instant Messaging) a Reference Librarian.

Plus, it also features an Educator Request form where you can request materials on a specific subject, a Virtual Reference Shelf where you can access online resources, and finally a link that takes you to FREE practice tests for the MN Driving Test! Libraries offer such a variety of useful services!

If you are looking for more online reference services, visit AskMN.org where they have a page specifically for school libraries.