Tag Archives: CMLE Needs Assessment

CMLE membership needs assessment!

survey
All the cool kids fill out surveys!

 

This one goes out just to our members! (Everyone else: we like you too. We are just looking for member feedback right now.)

Survey Link

As your library system, our job at CMLE Headquarters is to support you and provide help in training, grants, and other services to make your job easier as you serve your community. And so: this survey.
As I am new, I want to get acquainted with all the libraries in our system, and to start making some longer range plans on services we can provide to help you to do your jobs. I want to know what people are doing, what kinds of continuing education would be useful, what issues you see coming up, and really anything else you think is important for me to know about the libraries here.Tell me about your job, about the things that are important to you, and let me know what CMLE can do to help you!

Continue reading CMLE membership needs assessment!

Your Peek at the Data: A Few Survey Results

Recently, staff in CMLE member libraries had almost one month to respond to an online CMLE Needs Assessment (survey). We sincerely thank the 152 people (20%) who took the time to share their thoughts, feedback, and dreams for library support services in Central Minnesota. CMLE serves 320 libraries in 12 counties, and one of the biggest challenges is understanding your specific needs while also trying to spot opportunities to convene academic, public, special and school librarians when a topic cuts across library type. In the next few weeks, we will highlight a few questions/responses  in order to provide manageable bites of data.

This week we highlight data about who participated, and
how they engage with various tools including social media!

Makeup of the Needs Assessment Respondents

na_1* Of K-12 respondents, 50% were in elementary schools; no surprise as there are more elementary schools overall.

 

The following chart shows tools that are blocked for use at work. Tip: Sometimes, these tools can be used in the  workplace by requesting special access for the specialized work you do!

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Social Media Use by Respondents: Professional and Personal Use

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Other interesting, notable facts!

  • 85% of respondents currently receive the Weekly Review email every Thursday from CMLE
  • The Tech Bits and Ideas, and Resources You Can Use categories of weekly blog posts, are the two highest ranked categories in the Weekly Review lineup
  • 44/46%  of respondents felt either there would be value, or there might be value in having a place online with others in Central MN for asking questions and getting answers.
  • Read the From the Director post to get my commentary on these results!

Do any of these results surprise you? How so? We would love to know….admin@cmle.org

Watch for a new set of Needs Assessment results next week!

From the Director

PPphotoI cannot believe we are once again staring down the end of another academic year!  My social media world reminds me that many of you are pushing through grueling testing in the K-12 schools, enduring exhausting budgeting exercises when there simply isn’t enough money, and yes, some of you are defending your jobs too. Welcome to spring in library land. Oh wait, I forgot pending legislation!

Legislatively, it doesn’t help that although the state has a wonderful budget surplus of $1.8 billion for the first time in years,  funding to K-12 education AND libraries will probably not happen in any meaningful way this year (I don’t equate the current 1% increase for K-12 education meaningful). There are many opinions about why this might be. Last year,  the heavy price tag to the state for all-day kindergarten did us no favors. And, the Governor’s push for statewide Pre-K this year, may have pushed too far, and fueled the legislator’s need to block the Governor on yet another pricey education improvement. Personally, I am not sure we were quite ready for another budget item of this size, and I am not sure the schools were ready for it either. Unfortunately, all education related funding (including libraries and multitype systems) get punished when all of our requests are included in a big old education omnibus bill. When things get adversarial, unfortunately we all lose! And, let’s not forget the students, what price will they pay?

On a positive note, I also see good things this time of year!

  • Summer reading lists and hammock plans are growing,
  • We only see snow showers occasionally each week, and
  • Great summer events like the MidMN EdCamp in St. Cloud are taking on an exciting life of their own. CMLE is a sponsor of this event, and we are hoping to see you there!
  • And, I see that 152 people in Central MN took time out of busy schedules to participate in our 2015 CMLE Needs Assessment. To those people, thank you; we are prepared to suit up and serve the expressed needs of the majority of respondents!

Doing a Needs Assessment is an emotional roller coaster much like a legislative session!  As you can imagine, trying to determine and/or serve the needs of almost 800 people in 320 locations is a tall order, and you can only ask for the information if you are brave enough to face it! We are happy to see that 85% of our audience is receiving our weekly email that acts as a launching pad for important library information. Help us discover who we might be missing. We saw few surprises in your use of social media, but still think Twitter is underutilized as a collaboration tool  with colleagues. Our Tech Bits and Ideas category of information was rated highest which fulfilled our hunch this year when we added it to the Weekly Review lineup. The open ended questions are the hardest….we hear worried, isolated, and exhausted voices in some of those responses. CMLE will continue to listen, support you,  and respond! Thank you for the important work you do in Minnesota libraryland and watch for the next installment of Needs Assessment data next week. Did you miss this weeks results?

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