Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

In this episode we will talk about an issue every library staffer faces: patron questions or problems with technology, and how to answer them when you have no idea what is going on.

You can find our shownotes here, with all our information, links, and books we share.

This week we have Guest Host Ariel Kirst, from the Great River Regional Library System to help us get some ideas!

Working with technology, and all the various technology tools and devices patrons will bring to your library, is an important part of any library’s service to their community.

The main problem here is that you may not have a lot of training (or any!), and may not know how to use these devices or tools yourself.

Sorry – we aren’t going to magically give you all the answers. We don’t have them. But we are going to walk through some ideas you can use in your own work to better answer tech questions – even when you have no idea what’s going on!

Thanks to Ariel for coming in to work through this topic with us! Be sure you are subscribed to this podcast to get all the library skills directly to your favorite app each week. And you can check out our shownotes for each episode to get all the info we discussed, along with the links to more resources. Every episode we have created is on our website: cmle.org.

If you want to enjoy our book group podcast, subscribe to Reading With Libraries to get a new book, or a whole new genre, each week.

Thank you listening today for joining us! Check back in with us next week for another library competency – we are looking forward to more chatting about library work.

Check out this episode!

Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

You can find our full shownotes page here.

This week we will be talking about policies and procedures. These are tools that can not only guide your library and help you make decisions, but they can also be so useful in explaining to other people what you are doing and why you are doing it. Good policies and procedures can save you a lot of trouble!

This week we have Guest Host Karen Pundsack, Executive Director at Great River Regional Library System to help us get some ideas!

Check out this episode!

Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

Check out our full shownotes here.

This week we will be talking about Social Media in your library, and how to make it work for you.

We welcome back returning Guest Host Jessie Storlien, from the Stearns History Museum, to help us get some ideas!

Social media is fun! Social media is informative! Social media is a snake pit of danger! Yes, it’s all these things at once. Developing some good social media practices in your library will help to keep you on the more positive side of social media work. So, while it’s good to remember that things you say will be remembered online, and even innocent gaffs can be turned into PR disasters – that’s probably not every day, or possibly not ever for you. Use social media tools as you would anything else that is powerful: carefully, and with plans for keeping everyone safe and happy.

These can be so handy for sharing information – you can reach out to where your patrons are to deliver messages, share information, promote programs and materials, and anything else. Your work in a library is to share information; social media tools can be an easy way to do that. This is part of your job, to connect people to your information. And social media can be a useful way to make that happen.

Thanks to Jessie for coming in to work through this topic with us! Be sure you are subscribed to this podcast to get all the library skills directly to your favorite app each week. And you can check out our shownotes for each episode to get all the info we discussed, along with the links to more resources. Every episode we have created is on our website: cmle.org.

If you want to enjoy our book group podcast, subscribe to Reading With Libraries.  

Thanks for joining us this week! And check back in with us next week for another library competency!

Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

Check out our full shownotes page here.

This week we will be talking about Customer Service in your library, and how to make it work for you. Attentive listeners may be thinking “Hey! Didn’t you guys already do this topic?” Good catch! We did – way back in Season Two, episode 210. We link to it here, and it would be worth your time to go back and listen or read our show notes.  This is such an important topic – the foundation of everything we do in the library really – and it’s also such a hard thing to always do well, that we wanted to cover it again.

This week we have Guest Host Kathy Parker, Director of the St John’s/St Ben’s academic libraries, to help us get some ideas!

Thanks to Kathy for coming in to work through this topic with us! Be sure you are subscribed to this podcast to get all the library skills directly to your favorite app each week. And you can check out our shownotes for each episode to get all the info we discussed, along with the links to more resources. Every episode we have created is on our website: cmle.org.

If you want to enjoy our book group podcast, subscribe to Reading With Libraries.  

Thanks for joining us this week! And check back in with us next week for another library competency!