Tag Archives: CMLE

Check this out:, CMLE, Communication, General, Public, Resources, Special

One of our travel bugs has made it to a library!

cheesehead-library-cacheOne of our travel bugs has been retrieved and moved on to its next location – and it looks like one that we can all enjoy!

The travel bug Libraries Rock made a quick stop off at the St Cloud Public Library, then moved on to its next cache – Enjoy the Journey. “The coordinates above will take you just outside of a place that holds a multitude of wonderful adventures. You can easily lose track of time when adventuring. Before you enter you will need to find a time capsule that will lead you to your adventure inside.” (Thanks, East Central Regional Library! Everyone from CMLE who stops in to see their cache, be sure to say hello to the library staff! This is yet another great way for system members to get acquainted and chat with each other!)

Have you been to this cache?

Have you searched out a geocache? Tell us about your adventures in the comments!

In December, as we are all working on stress management, heading out to look for geocaches and travel bugs – whether they started at CMLE or not – can be a great way to relax and enjoy some fun exploration!

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special

From Good to Great as a library leader

Pencil tips
Working on our professional development!

If you’ve been keeping up with CMLE’s book groups on Goodreads, the phrase “Good to Great” may ring a bell! That’s because the book “Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap and Other’s Don’t” by Jim Collins was our November read in the Librarian Professionals group! We hope that if you read the book, you were able to take away a sense of what helps great leaders and companies function at such a high level.

Library Journal recently posted this article written by librarian and Vice President of the ACRL Steven Bell on why the book can be especially helpful to those in the library world. He discusses how the book is still relevant in today’s library leadership world, but also names additional articles and resources that have continued to build upon Collins’ book.

Bell names a main component that is necessary for achieving greatness – passion! Leaders need to be able to channel their passion for their work in a way that inspires others to follow them and leads their company in the right direction. Bell also gives some suggestions of how to lead successfully in the library world.

If you are interested in developing your leadership skills, CMLE’s Librarian Professionals book group is an easy place to start! Our book for December is The Happiness Project, and we welcome you to join us!

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Thanksgiving at CMLE!

thanksgiving-3 As you may be starting to appreciate, we like to be festive at CMLE Headquarters. Since Thanksgiving is soon approaching, we decided it was time to hang up the turkeys! (We have decorative turkeys on streamers floating from the ceiling. There’s no good way to photograph them, so stop by or use your imagination!)

thanksgiving-1

We just wanted to share our decorations with you, and perhaps you have some festive November or Thanksgiving themed decorating going on at your library or media center? Send us a picture! For more glimpses of our exciting office happenings (often including Orville the Bear and the Office Plant team) follow us on Instagram.

thanksgiving-2

Check this out:, General, Guest Blogger

We want YOU! To Guest Blog!

guestblog
This could you you! The fame! The fortune! The recognition from your peers!! It could all be yours!

CMLE members, and other devoted readers, we want you!!

We want your ideas! We want your experiences! We want to know what is going on in your corner of the library world!!

As part of our commitment to reach out to members across the system, to connect everyone together, and to help all our members to be successful, Guest Blogging is already playing a role in sharing information. As library people, we all benefit from sharing information.

So, let’s have it!!

You are the expert in your area. You have valuable information to share. You may have a great, inspiring, and heartwarming story of patron services that will bring a tear to the eye of everyone who reads it. You may have a story of funding gone so wrong that we shudder in our nightmares just thinking about it.

More realistically – you probably have an interesting service. Or a new piece of art. Or some thoughts about a new database or encyclopedia.

Whatever.

We want to hear it! Your colleagues also want to hear it! So make your voice heard!!

Email us at CMLE Headquarters, and we will send you some guidelines on creating a Guest Blog. Or, just go nuts, bang away at the keyboard for a few minutes, and proudly send us the results!!

(Can you tell this is not a high-stress activity?? It’s really not.)

Questions? Thoughts? Want to just share an idea and get us to do the heavy lifting of writing it up? Any of these are possible!

Get on this today!!! We want to hear from you – and are sitting by the computer, excitedly waiting for you 🙂

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Identifying Stakeholders (Advocacy Series #2)

Stakeholders are the lifeblood of a library. They are our audience and our supporters. We need to keep them happy, and to give them all the materials and services they want and need. We need to justify our expenditures and our existence to them.

In short: Stakeholders are a big deal.

But who are they? How do we find them? Could they be labeled (maybe with a nice bar code) so we can be sure we are there for them?? (Short answer: No. That would be way too easy!)

Identify Stakeholders

Identification is both a challenge, and the easiest part of it all. Sit down at your desk, or with your colleagues, and make a list of the first people you can think of who are important to your library – who have a stake in it.

Pretty easy, right? Sophomores, tiny kids and their parents. Provosts and Mayors. Doctors, prisoners, soccer moms. Essentially it’s the people in your neighborhood.

Continue reading Identifying Stakeholders (Advocacy Series #2) →