Category Archives: Special

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Take a look at our CMLE events!

Snippets and Sneak Peaks: Winter EditionCMLE staff are often asked what CMLE does now that it no longer provides the interlibrary loan service that ended  in 2012. Coming up on 10 years of flat funding, CMLE needs to choose carefully what it can start and what it can sustain. With a small staff of 1.5 people, we do lots of things, one being your receipt of our Weekly Review email each Thursday. In order to send the email, our staff comb through hundreds of bits of information to identify the best to help you manage the clutter in your inbox. We often take complicated subjects and distill them down into manageable bites too. In addition, CMLE offers events, some of a technical nature, and some more lighthearted to provide you time to socialize and build relationships with your peers. Take a look at our events lineup this year….

ELM Expo in partnership with Metronet and Minitex; a full day of face-to-face learning tips and tricks of using ELM: Took place November 6, 2015

Snippets & Sneak Peeks book talk event in partnership with East Central Region of ITEM and Barnes & Noble: Took place Jan. 12, 2016

Genealogy Research Workshop in partnership (for space and laptops) with Great River Regional Library: February 2, 2016 (postponed due to weather, coming soon)

Spring Author Event with Erin Hart and Paddy O’Brien at North Folk Winery in Cambridge in partnership with Scout & Morgan Books: March 10, 2016. Register now! Deadline is March 4th!

New Library Spring Tour and Book Talk event in partnership with St. Cloud Community and Technical College, date is pending, watch our communications.

Supervisory Nuts and Bolts Workshop, coming soon. Have you ever noticed you learned about theory in “library school” but not many practical skills or tips about supervising without authority? The date for this event will be picked based on the wishes of those who are interested in attending.

In addition, CMLE  makes contributions to programming of other organizations in order to provide you with a better attendee experience. Three examples include the ITEM Fall Conference, MLA Fall Conference, and the EdCamp MidMN right here in St. Cloud, Minnesota. If you ever need financial assistance to attend any library-related event or conference, please consider the CMLE Scholarship program. Yes, that is another of our many services which strive to respond to regional needs. The full services list is on our site.

Photo credit: Maria Burnham

 

 

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Tips for library newsletters

computerNow that it is mid-year for schools and mid-winter for the rest of us, its a great time to communicate with your staff, faculty, students, families, and stakeholders about all your successes and new programs so far this year. Here is a wonderful resource to help you think through and start a newsletter or freshen up an existing one. Tips like: knowing your audience, making the newsletter attractive, keeping it fun, and giving usable tools to your audience will help you present an attractive and professional communication piece that everyone will enjoy reading.

Tips on creating library newsletters

Image credit: https://unsplash.com/(Luis Llerena), licensed under CC0 1.0
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Featured service: CMLE Grants page

Money, Money, MoneyWho doesn’t love free money??  With 15 different grants to choose from, our CMLE Grants page is a wonderful resource to get extra money for an innovative project or idea for your library, school, or classroom. Here are just a few. Make sure to check out the rest on our page!

  • AASL Innovative Reading Grant: Funding for programs for children which motivates and encourages reading, especially with struggling readers.
  • Adopt-a-classroom: Donors partner with teachers for funding critical resources and needs for the classroom.
  • Arthur Vining Davis Foundation: Professional development funding.
  • Digital Wish Grants: Submit a technology-based lesson plan for a chance to win over 50 different technology grants.
  • DonorsChoose.org: Post classroom project requests on DonorsChoose.org. “Citizen philanthropists” can browse project requests and give any amount to the one that inspires them.

Plus several more to check out here.  There are grants for all library and school types on our page.

 

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/pzn8nto, licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

The top 25 idiotic passwords

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mediawiki_1.25_sign_in_form.pngIf you’re using “123456” or “password” for your password, Gizmodo has some news for you: you need to change your password! Their recent post pulled the 25 most popular passwords of 2015 and it contains some great examples of what NOT to use as your password. Interestingly, there are some changes on the list from last year that point to changes in popular culture. “starwars” and “princess” have joined the ranks but even though they might be clever, they really shouldn’t be used as passwords.

Check out the whole list of bad passwords.

Or, learn how to create a strong password: