Tag Archives: April

Read with us in April!

We think spring is a great time to read, especially because it can sometimes be done outside in the sunshine. If you are looking for books to join you outdoors as the weather warms up, we’ve got a few great choices for you with our Goodreads groups.

This month in our Librarians Enjoying Books group we are reading The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger.

“A most untraditional love story, this is the celebrated tale of Henry DeTamble, a dashing, adventuresome librarian who inadvertently travels through time, and Clare Abshire, an artist whose life takes a natural sequential course. Henry and Clare’s passionate affair endures across a sea of time and captures them in an impossibly romantic trap that tests the strength of fate and basks in the bonds of love.”

Plus, the author has a great love and appreciation for libraries! From her Acknowledgements: “I would also like to thank
the librarians of the Reference Desk at the Evanston Public Library,
for their patient assistance with all sorts of wack queries.”

The Evanston Public Library was our Spotlight Library during Episode 4 of our CMLE podcast, check it out here.

In our CMLE Librarian Professionals group, we will be reading Radical Candor: Be a Kickass Boss Without Losing your Humanity by Kim Malone Scott.

Radical Candor offers a guide to those bewildered or exhausted by management, written for bosses and those who manage bosses. Taken from years of the author’s experience, and distilled clearly giving actionable lessons to the reader; it shows managers how to be successful while retaining their humanity, finding meaning in their job, and creating an environment where people both love their work and their colleagues.”

In fact, author Gretchen Rubin (who wrote our December book The Happiness Project!) recommends this book: “I’ve known Kim Scott for many years. She and I worked at the Federal Communications Commission together. After that job, I switched to being a full-time writer, and she worked in a bunch of different places, including three failed start-ups, Google, and Apple. I love talking to Kim about workplace issues. She has such interesting things to say about how to be a terrific boss or colleague who has high standards, and who can help people grow and improve, but also be kind. It can be a tough balance.”

Join us this month and let’s read together!

 

Notable Dates for your Noggin: April 2016

Calendar BannerEach month we’ll bring you a compiled list of fun national holidays, birthdays of authors, and publication dates of favorite books.  You can use these for your own personal use or for some library inspiration!

April is National Poetry Month and School Library Month and National Library Week (April 10-16, 2016). Other things to celebrate in April. . .

April
 2  Hans Christian Andersen’s Birthday (1805)
 4  National School Librarian Day
 Maya Angelou’s Birthday (1928)
 5  Carrie (Stephen King) published in 1974
 10  Encourage a Young Writer Day
 The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald) published in 1925
 12  National Grilled Cheese Day
 Beverly Cleary’s Birthday (1916)
 National Library Workers Day
 13  Scrabble Day
 Bookmobile Day
 15  Rubber Eraser Day
 21  Charlotte Bronte’s Birthday (1816)
 Barbara Park’s Birthday (1947)
 26  William Shakespeare’s Birthday [estimated] (1564)
 27  Tell a Story Day
 28  Harper Lee’s Birthday (1926)
 Great Poetry Reading Day

Did we miss anything?  Let us know if we did!

For our calendar of library events, including conferences and library days, check out our Events/Initiatives page.

And for more Notable Dates for Your Noggin, check out our Notable Dates page.

63 Free Library Webinars in April

Some rights reserved by kodomut
Some rights reserved by kodomut

OK, 63 is a lot, but take a moment to consider the best course of action! First consider your most pressing topical needs….

Strategy:

  • Before you begin perusing the list of possibilities, you need a plan….start a Word doc to help you stay organized.
  • If you have lots and lots of questions on those pressing topics, you may want to attend those webinars live, so you have an opportunity to ask questions that still might not be answered during  the presentation.
  • Put the most pressing ones first (the question ones) in a April Live Webinars  category in your doc
  • See if  the dates for live work for you, register or check whether you need to register, and put them in your calendar.
  • If you have a conflict and cannot attend live, move them to the next category in your doc, perhaps Learning When I Have Time!
  • Hopefully, all of the links will transfer into your Word doc, so in a moments notice, you can click on the link and go!

The beauty of webinars is that almost all of them allow you to view the content when you have time to focus and learn, which is important! I often have to clear my desk, or turn papers upside down, so I do not get distracted and just do other work while the webinar is happening.

Huge thanks to Open Education Database (OEDB) for their continued work in offering this compilation of high quality learning opportunities each month, which is simply priceless.

Tip: If attending live, pay careful attention to the time zone listed!

And, the precious  link to this month’s delectable list is http://tinyurl.com/mmauljw

April Productivity Tip

According to the folks at  MakeUseOf, “The time has come where we all make promises to ourselves that we’ll be better, harder, faster, and stronger by the end of 2014. Twelve months is a long time, though, and it can be easy to lose steam over such a long period. What can you do about it? Our approach: break the year down into months and dedicate each month to a particular change. This method lets you internalize one change at a time before moving onto the next one. Front loading all of your resolutions together is just a recipe for being overwhelmed. A common resolution for most working people is to be more productive. If you do it right, by the end of the year you’ll be doing more work in less time!” Credit for the content of these monthly posts goes to Joel Lee, MakeUseOf.

Image by UrbaneWomanMag. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by UrbaneWomanMag. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

April’s Bad Habit: Not Taking Notes

“How much time do you waste trying to decide what you’re going to tackle next? For a lot of folks, deciding what to do can actually take up a good chunk of the day — especially true for those who are more on the indecisive side. Without a clear roadmap of what the day entails, productivity drops through the ground.

Solution: Take notes and take lots of them. Evernote is fantastic for this since it handles notes, to-do lists, syncing across desktop and smartphones, and more. Whenever a new task pops into mind, immediately jot it down in your notes so you don’t forget it. For optimal to-do list productivity, make your list of tasks for tomorrow at the end of today — that way, you can hop right into tomorrow when morning comes without wasting any time. ”

This excerpt is from 12 Productivity Habits To Finally Hack Your Life In The New Year by Joel Lee, MakeUseOf, Jan.1, 2014