Category Archives: Services

Academic, Check this out:, General, Guest Blogger, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Services, Special, Tech

Four Resources To Improve Your Library’s Accessibility

accessibility
Accessible is not Optional!

 

CMLE Guest Blogger: Carli Spina

Accessibility for individuals with disabilities is an important topic for any library. Not only is this a legal requirement for virtually all libraries, but it is also important to ensure that our libraries are welcoming and inclusive for all members of the community. This is particularly important when considering the way you offer your online materials. The four resources below make accessibility improvements approachable, no matter the staffing level of your library or the level of technical experience that you have.

  1. ARL’s Web Accessibility Toolkit – Though created and maintained by the Association of Research Libraries, this toolkit has resources that will be useful to those working in any kind of library. The toolkit includes definitions and background information as well as best practices and a step-by-step process for fostering accessibility at your library. In addition, it has a resources section that includes a detailed page on best practices and resources for adding captions to your library’s video content.
  2. WAVE (Web Accessibility Evaluation Tool) – WebAIM offers a wide array of web accessibility tools, information, and resources, but if I had to pick just one to recommend, it would be WAVE. This tool makes it simple to do a quick accessibility test of any website for which you have the URL. The resulting report provides detailed information in a way that is easy to read. While this tool might not catch every single potential problem on your site, it is an excellent way to find particularly troublesome issues.
  3. Contrast Checker – One frequently overlooked aspect of accessibility is color contrast. This is important not only to those who are colorblind, but also for users who have low vision or are reading in low light. But, despite the fact that contrast is important to a large number of users, it is frequently ignored in the name of design aesthetics. This tool will not only allow you to check specific colors to ensure that they meet accessibility standards but will also let you save and share color pairs that work well (or poorly).
  4. The Principles of Universal Design poster by NC State University College of Design – This resource moves a bit beyond basic accessibility to the concept of Universal Design, which is design that is “usable by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without adaptation or specialized design.” The poster sets forth the seven principles that are central to Universal Design and offers multiple examples for each principle. Implementing these principles will not only help to make your library more accessible, but will also make it welcoming for the widest possible range of users from those who are in a rush or have their hands full to those for whom English is not their first language and beyond. This poster is a great crash course on the topic and will almost certainly spark ideas for ways to make your library more inclusive.

I hope these resources will help you to improve your library’s accessibility and introduce you to new tools that will streamline your processes. If you have any questions, let me know in the comments or contact me on Twitter where I’m @CarliSpina.

 

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Communication, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Services, Special, Tech

Do you need some pep? Check out these library advocacy videos!

Videos can be a great way to demonstrate your services, and to advocate for your library!  Check out these library videos, to see what kinds of things other libraries are trying.

Does your library make videos? Would you like to?? At CMLE Headquarters, we want to encourage video creation and sharing, so tell us about your work!

2016 Livonia Public Library Summer Reading Program … Parkour!

“Do you need a book recommendation? Have you ever seen a librarian stunt double? Check out our 2016 Livonia Library Summer Reading video featuring Phoenix Freerunning Academy and our very limber librarians. Jump into action on June 4, 2016 by grabbing a reading log at any of the Livonia Public Libraries! Visit our website for more info: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org. And for the Children’s summer reading log, visit our Children’s Programs page: http://livoniapubliclibrary.org/kids/…. Library Parkour!”

Save the Troy Library “Adventures In Reverse Psychology”

“The city of Troy, Michigan was facing a budget shortfall, and was considering closing the Troy Public Library for lack of funds. Even though the necessary revenues could be raised through a miniscule tax increase, powerful anti-tax groups in the area were organized against it. A vote was scheduled amongst the city’s residents, to shut the library or accept the tax increase, and Leo Burnett Detroit decided to support the library by creating a reverse psychology campaign. Yard signs began appearing that read: “Vote to Close Troy Library on August 2nd – Book Burning Party on August 5th.” No one wants to be a part of a town that burns books, and the outraged citizens of Troy pushed back against the “idiotic book burners” and ultimately supported the tax increase, thus ensuring the library’s survival.”

 

 

A Vision Shared: School Board/District Planning for

School Library Advocacy

 

“This short film provides pointers for creating a school board/district wide vision statement for school libraries and emphasizes the importance of advocating for school libraries.”

Librarians Do Gaga

“Students and faculty from the University of Washington’s Information School get their groove on.”

 

Librarian Rhapsody- Shoalhaven Library Staff

This is the most unusual annual report from a library that I’ve ever seen – but combining telling their community about the things they have been doing over the past year with a strong message advocating for the library is a great touch! (Keep watching to the end for the final couple of sentences!)

Check this out:, CMLE, General, Resources, School Media Specialist, Services

Do you know about Imagination Library?

imagination-library-1
We love our Imagination Library books! Especially since they are board books and therefore chew-safe 🙂

If you are a book-lover and have small children at home under the age of five, you should definitely know about this program! Imagination Library was founded by country singer Dolly Parton to promote literacy and an early love of books in children by mailing them a book each month, no matter the income level of the household.

The United Way of Central Minnesota has been taking part in this program, and if you live in the area, here is where you can sign up! (Tip: it does take several weeks until you receive your first book, so don’t procrastinate!) Each child from birth to their fifth birthday will receive a book in the mail each month. The program has become so popular that it has continued into Canada and the U.K.

You can get more information about the program from their website, or keep up with the book selections and other news on their blog. Also, check out CMLE’s previous post about the program when Imagination Library was donating their 1 millionth book!

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Quick overview of the Needs Assessment survey

results
Information is great!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our needs assessment survey! The winners of the $25 Amazon gift cards have been notified.

As with all surveys, we wanted to learn more about the needs of our community. In our case, our community is our member libraries; and our need is figuring out what you guys need so we can better serve you. In any organization with a new director, it is valuable to spend this time asking around about things people want so we can keep building on successful partnerships from the past, as well as helping with the new needs a rapidly-changing profession like ours creates. Combining the information we learned here with the information learned in visiting our member libraries gives us a better picture of the things we can do to help support our libraries!

This will be a quick overview of the highlights of the results from the information received. We will be working on this for a while, and using this information to build services and materials we can offer to you. In any sort of partnership, things will keep changing and the work we do today will change too. We will be sending out another needs assessment survey in about a year and a half, to see where we are then, and what other kinds of things we can be doing.

The results here are not necessarily representative of all members, but they are giving us a basis to start thinking about things. People who are really interested in statistical testing and analysis should contact me, because I love to talk about that stuff! But this is designed as an overview, a place to start, and to have other information filled in from visits, discussions, and other sources around the system. So it may not be perfect, but every plan needs a starting point!

Continue reading Quick overview of the Needs Assessment survey →

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

State Library Services update

state-library-services

CMLE libraries – we are working to bring you information from libraries across the state and the country. Here is the latest newsletter from the State Library Services department, to get you caught up on some important issues happening across the state!

Bringing Early STEM to Libraries
The Science Museum of Minnesota is offering early STEM training to library and early education staff through a series of workshops across the state this October and November. Over 180 library and early childhood professionals have attended or are registered to attend the workshops. There is still room to register for the Nov. 10 workshop in Waseca.

To support library efforts after the training, the museum is developing early STEM activity plans, kits and prompts as well as educational messaging to help library staff and volunteers facilitate early STEM experiences for children and their caring adults. We look forward to sharing more information and new resources after the training sessions have wrapped up. Contact Jackie Blagsvedt (651-582-8805) with questions.

Evaluating Our LSTA Five-Year Plan 
We are working with the Management Analysis and Development (MAD) consulting group to assess our progress toward meeting the goals of the current LSTA Five-Year Plan. On November 1, we launched a survey to aggregate input from the library community that will inform the required evaluation of our 2013-2017 plan. Your input truly is helpful as we determine how well we have achieved the goals of the plan. You should have received an email from Karen Gaides with an invitation to complete the survey. If you did not receive an email invitation, please contact Karen Gaides (651-259-3822) to request the link. Continue reading State Library Services update →