We would love to see you at either one! And of course, we encourage you to attend this conference, and any other professional conference relevant to your work. It will be worth your time to reach out and make connections, and learn new ideas!
We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange, and we are here to chat with you this season about building your leadership skills. We provide support and training for all types of libraries, and our work can be used by anyone who wants to build skills, and to become a better leader in your own organization.
Creativity in the workplace is such a great skill to develop! In any organization, the way work was done five years ago, a year ago, or potentially even yesterday, is just not good enough anymore. Society changes pretty quickly, and we need to not only keep up but to be out front providing leadership. The horrifying phrase “…but we’ve always done it that way…” probably means things need to change.
But you may be slightly panicking here. Maybe you don’t know how to sing, dance, draw, or paint – so you think you are not creative. Don’t worry! Creativity at work does not require any of these skills – though if you do have them, feel free to incorporate them into you work.
Instead we define creativity in the workplace as seeing different ways to accomplish goals, and bringing forward new ideas. Anyone can do this!
Each week we are here to talk with you with a few details about a library topic. We want to help everyone to stay up to date with the information you need to make your library or archive successful in serving your community.
We like books.
I’m guessing you like books too.
Probably some of your community members like books.
Pretty much, our brand is books. It’s what people think of when they think about us. And you may be tired of telling people you work in a library, and having them chortle and say “Oh, I wish I had a job where I could sit around and read all day!”
*gritting teeth*
But we do talk about books – and of course for most of us that’s one of the fun parts of this job!
There are lots of materials online on building your skills, and we will collect a few here for you.
We started this as a way to talk about books, but it is also set up to be a resource for you to use in sharing books.
Each week we cover a different genre, and we provide information about that genre, along with links to all kinds of places to find more books on these books. (We also have genre-related beverages in each episode! That’s for you!) Then we chat with our guests about books we have read and enjoyed, and those book are listed on the show notes page for easy access.
Subscribe today!! Or, just click right here and you can browse all our episodes, and can listen to them right on that page.
What else is out there?
This is a handy PDF from Novelist that you can use to ponder different types of readers, and different skills library staff will bring to the library: Readers Advisory Guide from Novelist. You can find it all on their site, along with other info.
If you work in a library, you may be the Copyright expert for your organization.
And if that makes you suddenly stop breathing in panic – I get you. It’s potentially a pretty scary place to be. But we are going to give you some tips and ideas to help you manage this tasks!
We have a bunch of information on our Copyright page, so browse through that.
Here are some basics to get you started.
http://www.copyright.gov/ This is where it all comes from – the home of copyright information for the US! We will be looking at individual sections of this site during class, but you may want to keep this bookmarked for your own purposes
Check out this (kinda long-feeling) video on Copyright law, as told by clips of less than ten seconds from Disney films! As an absolutely huge supporter of crushing people and firmly clutching their products to themselves, the Disney corporation has a not-lovely reputation in the legalities of Copyright. (If you watch a couple of minutes, you’ve got the idea; watch the whole thing for some good info!)
How can you get around Copyright law? There are four general pieces to Fair Use by someone who does not own the material. How will you know if you have guessed incorrectly on use? You will be the recipient of a massive copyright lawsuit! (It won’t be fun. Try to avoid this.) Here are the four factors that may be exemptions:
#1 Copyright is simple at the core: You create stuff, so you own it.
Well, if things were that simple we could wrap up our article here, and spend the rest of the afternoon sipping refreshing beverages at the beach! Of course things get complicated – and in that area of complication we will find enough drama, intrigue, and hostility to fill not only a summer class but thousands of books, articles, and websites. This is where things get exciting!
#2 Copyright is governed by federal law.
This is not an area where people can “try really hard” and be right. Being nice individuals, or not knowing they were breaking the law, does not save people accused of copyright violations. While there are not actual Copyright Police who will throw people in to Copyright Jail, there are substantial financial penalties involved for breaking the law.
Library people generally live in that gray zone between absolute right of the creators/owners of information, and freely sharing information with other people. It’s not an easy place to be, but we will look at a few ways you will be able to get your bearings, figure out what is going on, and help your users to stay (generally) on the right side of the law!
We will explore both the rigidity of law, and the fuzziness of exceptions to that law! Yes: it is always going to be a tightrope performance for you. Mistakes cost money, time, and possibly your job – so let’s practice here, with nets to support us, before you try this at work!
#3 Critical Thinking skills are important!
Some of the material you will find advocate breaking federal laws, or bending things in new ways, or hiding our own initiative and following rules that may run contrary to the intent of creators and users of content. You need to think for yourself: what is important in this discussion? What attributes of copyright are vital? Where does copyright go off the rails in protecting the economic interests of a few people? What kinds of stands, if any, do you want to make as an library person?? There are not going to be “right” answers to these questions – but there are answers that will be right, and wrong, for you. THINK! Be informed! Make good decisions for yourself!
Welcome back to Linking Our Libraries! This week we are going to talk about Communication as a tool that leaders use to get things done.
Being an effective communicator is one of the very best ways to demonstrate your leadership strength. What do we mean by communication? This week we mean speaking, writing, listening; understanding your message and conveying it to others.
We have talked about good communication skills in a prior episode, so check out that episode together with this one. In that episode, we talk about the process of communication. In this one, we are going to focus in on some specifics of different communication strategies to help you build up your skills.
Check out our show notes page to get all the information we discuss today, plus links to the books we discuss here.
