Category Archives: Training

Stress-Busting Therapy Dogs!

Fancy dog
clearly a hard worker, at being mellow

We have talked about the great work dogs do in libraries to help kids with their reading, and some of you already have these dogs hard at work in your library.

This month, as we look at ways to mange stress in our libraries and workplaces, we wanted to look at dogs again; this time looking at pups who work to help bust stress! An increasingly popular activity in academic libraries, especially as the semester wraps up, therapy dogs provide a tool for libraries to help their communities to be successful in their work.

Continue reading Stress-Busting Therapy Dogs!

Stress management through meditation

stress
take a moment to notice your breathing…

You may have seen the news stories about the value of meditation, and in this month of looking at Stress Management at CMLE we want to share more of that information with you.

Most studies are being done to show the value of meditation in reducing stress levels, reducing anxiety levels, reducing your sensation of pain, and actually changing the physical structure of your brain.

All these great things, and it only takes a few minutes a day. If you have not already incorporated this into your daily routine, looking at the science behind the benefits of meditation may encourage you! Continue reading Stress management through meditation

Do you have training materials to share??

training
let’s share training!

Help!

At CMLE Headquarters we are working to assemble all kinds of library information you can use as you reach out to your communities. We have plans for all kinds of things, and are already working to add more material to our website so it will be useful to you. This collection of information will be one of the benefits of belonging to the CMLE system; so you can let us know what kind of information would be helpful to you!

One project we are starting is collecting training material on using online resources.We want to have this all in one handy spot, so when you need material on a resource you do not know, or when someone new joins a library, or you want to give instructions to patrons who are remote, nobody has to recreate things from scratch that already exist.

Have you used, or created, some training material that really worked for your patrons? We would love it if you shared it with us, so we could share it around the system! Do you have links to material already out there on the Web? Send them to us!

We are looking for training materials from all types of libraries across the system. An advantage to being part of a multi-type system is that we have similar needs, and approach them in different ways. That kind of perspective can be helpful to everyone else, as we work to improve our training for patrons!

You can send ideas, Office documents of all sorts, links to good training, names of people who know good things about our online resources, and anything else you have to share to us: admin@cmle.org.

Thanks for your help!

Let's just take a minute to breathe…

stress
breathe….blow out the stress, breathe in the relaxation!

This month we are talking about ways to handle stress in your workplace. While working in a library is wonderful in a lot of ways; we all know that it also brings us some stressful moments.

You need to take less than five minutes, right now, and just have some time to breathe and let your mind wander in happy directions. Take a nice deep breath in, hold for a second, and then breath out with gusto. Do this another time or two, and just let your worries fade to the background for a while. (They will be there later; so you can just forget about them for right now!)

Stress reduction can be enhanced by watching nature. So if you are somewhere you can look at fish, stare out the window at some green space, or pat your dog or cat – do that. And if you want to just relax and let nature come to you, we have a nice video of the Acadia National Park in Maine. Let it inspire you to go out after work or over the weekend and do your own walking around in nature, for the best relaxation!

STRESS! Let's listen to podcasts to help!

stress
podcasts of happiness await you!

Stress affects everyone, and end-of-year stress can be particularly difficult. Many of us are struggling to finish up all our work for the end of the semester, or celebrating holidays and all that comes with it, in addition to dealing with every single other thing that was already driving us crazy all year long! Patrons have less patience, money is suddenly tighter, and all kinds of extra programs can just cause even the best-balanced library person to hit a breaking point.

CMLE is here to help you. This month we will provide all kinds of information about stress, to help you learn more about it, and learn some strategies for managing stress. You cannot stop stress from happening, but we can all learn better ways to increase our resilience so stress does not knock us out!

One easy way to help is to listen to podcasts.

Of course, there are all kinds of librarian podcasts out there, and we recommend those as nice way to keep up with interesting things happening in the profession!

And there are podcasts you can listen to that will help you address your stress in a productive way. Continue reading STRESS! Let's listen to podcasts to help!