Category Archives: Visits

Can we visit your library?

Members, we love to visit your libraries! It’s such a joy to discover all the amazing programming, resources, and materials that you have to offer your communities!

We have an entire page dedicated to our Library Visits and we hope you take a look at some of the fantastic member libraries we have visited. (It is a long list!!)

But the CMLE system is made up of 12  counties! That is a lot of libraries, and we have not visited every one! So, we want to come to visit YOU!

And to encourage you to set up a visit, we have a lovely selection of framed literary-themed prints that we are offering to libraries that contact us to set up a visit. You can choose two prints and we will bring them to you at the time of the visit. See below for the choices:

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Our visits are casual, probably around thirty minutes long, and involve CMLE staff admiring the work you doing and finding out how we can be of more help to you in your library, archive, or media center. (They are not a test or scary or painful in any way!)

Sign up below, send  an email to admin@cmle.org, or visit our Request a Site Visit page. We can’t wait to visit you! 🙂

 

Member Visits: Mississippi Heights Elementary School!

It’s that time again – member visiting time!! You know that we love to visit all our member libraries, to see all the neat things you guys are doing!!

This visit was to see Audrey and the good things they are doing at the Mississippi Heights Elementary School. And as you can see below, they are doing all kinds of nice things for their community members!

 

Especially when community members are going to be younger, I absolutely love to see bright colors and fun furniture. Our whole purpose as library people is to bring in people, and encourage them to use all of our stuff. This kind of thoughtfulness in design is a great example of promoting the library as a good place – one that is interesting to kids (and adults!).

 

 

See? This is both really cute, and very welcoming. (I really had to be fast in here to get pictures without the crowds of kids getting in the shot!)

 

 

 

One more, just to show you some of the possibilities you can set up in your own library. Furniture than can move around as your patrons want, to suit their individual needs, is always going to be a great thing to provide. You want people to be happy, and to use your stuff; good furniture is an important part of providing that environment, so think about what you are putting out and how you are sharing it.

 

And of course, we are known for our books! We provide information in a variety of formats that will be useful to our patrons, and here you see a great example of this. These are books aimed at the youngest kiddos, who have trouble navigating books upright on the shelves. So this is a display of books just for them, at just the right height for them to easily see and grab what they want! I love seeing this kind of attention to usability. It’s easy to get caught up in making a library work for the staff – but we need to focus on being sure everything is set up to make it easy for our targeted community members.

 

It’s our job to help with information literacy and instruction – and these signs are great tools!! I love to see this kind of explanation of books and genres. What a great way to help kids start to think about books they like, and books they may want to try!

And this was just fantastic!!! Guys: a confession. I hate the Dewy system. It is hard to understand, it’s hard to explain, and yes – it keeps things in a nice order, but it’s an order that is not intuitive for patrons to understand and find materials. So this kind of usability tool that helps people visualize the materials they want, and to easily find books they need – it’s just wonderful!!

 

  And finally, especially in a school library, letting patrons know that they are important and valued is critical. We are not here just to stuff books in their hands and send them along; we are here to teach and help kids build skills. I was having a moderately tough week when I visited, and I have to say – I felt better reading this! I’m guessing it’s been helpful for other kids and adults. What a great idea!!

Check this out. You know you are in a library, you know you are in place where people care about your learning and development, and darn it – this is just cute!!

 

Thank you so much to Audrey and the entire staff in the media center, for inviting me over for such a nice visit!!

We want to come visit YOUR library next. Send us an email at admin @ cmle.org, and let’s set up a time to come to admire your library!

Visit to the St. Cloud VA Health Care System Library

It’s member visiting season again – yay!

We love to visit our members, and to see all the neat things they are doing. Have we been to YOUR library yet?? If not, then email us and let’s set it up!

I was invited to come visit a small but very active library in the St. Cloud VA Health Care System. (Okay, I kind of invited myself over. It still counts!) And this was a small but mighty library, lead by Patricia Grelson.

 

I found it! (I’m always absurdly proud when I find a new library!) To be fair here, a very nice person on the floor above this one showed me where to go. She brightened up when I asked for the final stretch of directions to the library. “Oh yes! I can take you there!” I tried to just get directions, but she escorted me nearly to the door. So nice!

 

 

 

It’s not huge, space-wise. A lot of the tour took place with me sitting at Pat’s desk and admiring things as I turned my head. A lot of their work takes place online, as is true in so many libraries! Sharing information that way makes it convenient for community members spread across a huge physical campus.

 

 

Sorry about the terrible shot here. I was literally sitting in a chair, and probably waving my other hand excitedly as Pat and I chatted a thousand miles a minute about all her cool library work!

 

 

 

That’s Pat! Everybody wave! *waves*  Don’t be fooled by the sign; she’s fiercely devoted to her library and to serving her community – but not scary. She is a great example to us all – joining every committee and group she can find, to be sure she’s there to tell people about the things her library can provide. That’s good advocacy, right there!

 

 

 

Again, sorry about the poor picture quality. (Did I stick my hand on the lens? Entirely possible.) You can see the materials in the boxes, all labeled and ready to share. And the tubs are book group packages – organized by month, so they can keep track of books shared and people can easily check into it again.

 

 

And check out these signs of the coolness of this library!! Sparkle is key for us all. And I am in fact a stress/happiness researcher, so I can tell you this correlation referenced on the right is correct. Implement it in your library today!

Libraries are important parts of their community. This library serves the information needs of the community of professionals working at the VA, across a huge range of specialties. As a librarian – I’m impressed! As the daughter of a veteran wounded in combat, who has been using VA services for nearly 50 years now, I’m kind of in awe of the work they are able to do.

 

Can I can visit your library in November??? I’m scheduling visits NOW!! I’m looking forward to coming there and gushing over your stuff and your work!! Let’s set it up – email me at admin @ cmle.org.

Member Visit: Chisago Lakes Primary School

How could you NOT want to follow the Cat in the Hat to the library?? And you just know that once you arrive, there is sure to be all kinds of great things to check out! (Spoiler Alert: Yes there are!)

 

It’s always so fun to visit member libraries – and just check out how cute this one is! This elementary school is set up to meet the needs of shorter patrons, who want bright colors and lots of fun things to look at. Mission accomplished!

 

Look there, to the left in this picture. See that lofted area?? I love that! When I was a teeny kid I definitely would have loved to go spend time up there, reading my books and having tons of library fun! (Okay, I’m not currently teeny, but still went up there and enjoyed it!)

Sorry, this is not a great photo of it, but this is what you find when you head up to the reading platform. How fun would this be??? Kids can recline in their camp chairs, and enjoy their crafted “fire” in the center of the circle of chairs. (Okay, at this point I practically had to be dragged away to admire other things, because I really wanted to sit down and read books. You can’t possibly blame me for that!)

Then, underneath that platform is even more cool stuff! Check out these cute little chairs, and all the bright colors. Thinking about setting up places to encourage patrons, of any age, to want to settle in and read, enjoying the library, is a great thing for libraries to try! (Sorry, I didn’t scrunch down to try this area; but it did look great for people shorter and more flexible than me!)

I have never seen this bin before, but I love it! In many libraries there are spaces set aside for patrons to plop down books they have browsed but decided not to take home. It is usually easier to keep the shelves orderly if library staffers re-shelve books; and it is an easy way to see what kinds of things people are actually looking at. This bin is cute and catchy for kid-sized patrons to reach and to use!

Continue reading Member Visit: Chisago Lakes Primary School

Member Visit: Motley Staples Middle School

Member visits are always great! Being able to see what different members do in their libraries is always going to be interesting. Libraries do a lot of similar tasks; but the way that individual libraries choose to go about them, and to meet the needs of their community members, is always going to be different. We can learn from the work that everyone is doing across the system!

You can tell right away when you come into the building, before you even arrive at the library, that this is a place that is enthusiastic about their community of students. Check out that ceiling! I tried to hone in on one of the tiles with the cool painting, and the picture is a little blurry, but they were all interesting. I would definitely spend time looking up if I were walking the halls here!

When you arrive at the library, you can immediately see where the important functions will happen. This is the Circ Desk – located near the front door for easy access to checking out and returning books, and to give patrons (students primarily) a central location to find staff who can help them.

You can get a good perspective on the space of this library here. The Circ Desk is there on the right side of the photo, and you can see all the space for students to use desks, to wander and look at books on shelves, and space for teachers and library to spend time working with students individually and in groups.

I am always, always a fan of design that considers usability for patrons – and this a great example of doing that! High-interest books are found right here, just inside the front door and easy to locate. Kids can flip through this shelf that is sized just right for them, and they can easily find books that have eye-catching cover art, and books that appeal to them and their own reading interests. Location and size both contribute to making these books more valuable to the users.

This visit happened at the end of the year, when books were due back from users; so the shelves are a little more full than usual. But you can see how many great opportunities kids (and teachers!) have to find books useful in the classroom, or books that are just fun to read. Books that are interesting to read, and well organized, encourage kids (and adults) to read more books – always an important goal in any library!

 

Comfortable seating is always a draw in any library! I have a love of rocking chairs and books, so was pleased to see this cool set up!

 

 

 

And of course, libraries have many different ways to share information. Books, of course, are always important; but we are also a great place for our patrons to use computers to connect with the internet, to hone their technological skills, and to find information using digital tools. Students can use computers right here in the library to supplement their other technology work.

Art is another important tool for sharing information, especially in a school environment. This sculpture is one of several located in the library on the shelves. They were created by students in art class. It is always great to see libraries connecting with and partnering with other groups, and in school libraries this often means working with academic departments such as an art department. (A student working in the library gave me some information about how these little sculptures were created – it was so nice to get that info from a patron!)

Sorry that this photo is kind of off kilter, but what we are looking at is two-fold. First: plants of any sort (including artificial) are always great to see in a library! Real plants can help to clean the air, and even artificial plants can help to reduce stress in people who see them. Second, it was hard to get in a photo, but you can see the very cool glass shelves! Library staff can put up books in these glass shelves, and they are on display out on the hallway – how neat!! Displaying books is always a great way to help increase circulation, and to help connect books with patrons.

Every library is unique, and every library I have ever visited (literally hundreds of them) has something interesting to set it apart. While there are several interesting and unique things in this library, I enjoyed seeing this (completely harmless, empty) wasp nest. Bringing in nature to any indoor environment is great for people, like students, who spend a lot of time inside. But it’s just a neat thing to have something unique to potentially engage student interest in coming to the library!

Have we been to your library yet?? If you are a CMLE member, you know that we want to come see your library!! We are working our way through our membership list, and are looking forward to chatting with you about a visit – so send us an email and let’s make this happen!