Tag Archives: Blog Post

Academic, CMLE, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

We Want You!

 

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Blog with CMLE!

 

At CMLE, we want to provide our members with information on all kinds of issues that they may encounter in their library workplaces. And we want to be sure we have a wide variety of voices here to pass on information, experiences (good and bad!), suggestions, tips, and just general information that others could find helpful. Everyone has a story to share, experience to pass on, and ideas to contribute to make us all stronger!

We are actively soliciting for members to share their stories with us! We want to get all our CMLE members to share with each other here on our blog.

What could you write about?

  • a program that was fantastic, everything went smoothly, and you think other libraries could adopt
  • a program that was a disaster from start to finish, and you have a cautionary tale to terrify other libraries (Halloween is coming up, after all)
  • a program that fell somewhere between these two extremes
  • a database your users really like
  • a new technology you tried
  • some collection development or cataloging strategies you have developed over the years, that could make things easier/faster/more efficient for other people
  • a problem you are facing, where you could really use some advice from other people who have also been there
  • your library’s garden
  • your library’s pet
  • your library’s pet rock
  • quick tips to make scheduling easier
  • the cutest thing that happened last week
  • the scariest think that happened last week
  • the marketing plan you just wrote
  • your special, patented, never-fail strategy for ensuring your printers never jam! (okay – if you have this one, we DEFINITELY want it!)

Are we worried about perfection in writing up these stories? Nope!

Are we looking only for people who are amazing, perfect writers? No way!

Are we available to brainstorm with you, help with writing, and do the formatting and such to get your work posted and shared with CMLE? You bet!!

You can contribute a paragraph, a page, or longer! Not all information to be shared needs the same amount of discussion, so things are flexible here for you.

In addition to being open to almost anything you guys want to share and discuss, we are putting out a call for some specific topics. CMLE will be offering Monthly Topic themes, with blog posts and training focused all in an area that should be helpful to our members. We really want to hear from you and to share your stories, ideas, suggestions, and whatever else you have to share on our monthly topics. You can get your material ready any time, and we will hold onto it until the topical month comes up.

Our upcoming Monthly Topic schedule:

  • October: Hiring (including recruiting, writing job ads, interviewing, succession planning, and more)
  • November: Advocacy (including strategies for finding your stakeholders, templates for emailing legislators, practicing your elevator speech, and more)
  • December: Stress Management (including relaxation tips, work/life balance ideas, strategies for avoiding burnout, and more)
  • January: Grants (finding them, writing the application, managing programs, and more)

We will keep announcing topics before the month in question, so you can have time to think about your contributions.

Do you have an idea you might want to share? Call or email Mary or Angie, and we will work with you to get it created, scheduled, and shared!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Top 10 CMLE blog posts of the academic year 2016

10As the school year wraps up, we like to look back at the most popular posts or pages from the academic year. We thought you might be interested too!

  1. Makerspace madness! The top post was about the efforts of Sauk Rapids-Rice High School library surrounding makerspace programming.
  2. Our readers like to learn and keep their skills current, since our calendar of continuing education events came in second place!
  3. It’s been a busy year at CMLE, with some staffing changes taking place, and it’s clear readers like to stay updated!
  4. People were interested in learning about our event celebrating the new SCTCC library and Author event. Read the recap here.
  5. We were happy to see readers taking advantage of our Notable Dates Page! Check it out to help plan your library events or displays.
  6. The exciting news about the Scout & Morgan bookstore in Cambridge being a Top 10 finalist for the Independent Small Business Award landed it in sixth place!
  7. Another event that piqued interest was the Spring Author event with Paddy O’Brien and Erin Hart! Missed the event? Enjoy pictures and an event summary here.
  8. It’s no surprise big news from CMLE’s Executive Director Patricia Post on her retirement made the top 10!
  9. The desire of our readers to learn is clear! The calendar of Minitex Webinars and Training got many visits.
  10. And finally, who doesn’t need some humor injected into their day? Our post about funny library signs seemed to have been appreciated!
Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/n87a8p9, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Top 10 CMLE blog posts of the Academic Year

10As the school year comes to an end, we look back on our top posts of the academic year.  We can predict the popularity of some of these posts, but you surprised us with others!  Take a look:

  1. Events/Initiatives has held it’s #1 spot!  Our other event resources, Notable Dates for your Noggin, Online Training, and Minitex Webinars & Training proved popular as well.
  2. Recommended Apps came to you each week, highlighting apps from different categories.  Your favorite seemed to be Tellagami, but we’ve got them all arranged by category in the Best of the Best posts.
  3. Notable Dates for your Noggin provided you with some fun dates throughout the year – to use for displays, events, and other purposes!
  4. Infographics for You to Use was a series of posts to get some great visual resources to you.  The most popular one?  Information Literacy, Copyright, Attribution, and Plagiarism.
  5. CMLE Copyright Event! announced our big event of the year!  Nancy Sims joined CMLE members at the Stearns History Museum for an afternoon of copyright learning.
  6. Genrefication of your school’s fiction collection reported on the new way some libraries are organizing their fiction collection.  Many of you chimed in with the related Quick Question Poll also!
  7. Sartell – Education Done Differently highlighted a local school and its efforts to creatively use technology in the classroom.
  8. YALSA News: Teen Read Week proved helpful for both K-12 and public librarians alike!  (It also has a booklist, which we love!)
  9. Minecraft: more than just a game showed how the very popular program teaches lessons in programming as well as digital citizenship.
  10. I’m seeing it again, and again, and again. . . highlighted the social media trend where a page admin posts the same picture every day.

There you have it – the Top 10 of the school year!  Did you have a favorite CMLE post? Send and email to admin@cmle.org or post in the comments below what it was! We love to learn what keeps you coming back.

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/n87a8p9, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0