Tag Archives: CMLE

General

The Weekly Review is Coming!

CMLElogoFY11Starting next week on Thursday, September 10 (about 11 am), we will begin our Weekly Review email message to staff in 320 Central MN libraries. The weekly review is published each week on Thursdays (except summer and holidays) and is received by at least 700 individuals! In a typical week, CMLE’s website sees over 800 unique views!

Excited? We are too, and thought we would share a few little known facts about the Weekly Review…

• The Weekly Review message takes the place of a print or PDF CMLE newsletter (published from 1979-2010), and is your weekly news feed from CMLE staff to you!
• The combination of a weekly email and library news blog allows us to provide more timely information, while keeping the clutter in your inbox to a minimum.
• Our CMLE staff are watching multiple library news sources including professional organizations like ALA, AASL, ISTE, MLA, MEMO (now ITEM) and State Library Services in addition to following leaders in the library field on social media too!
• Each week, our staff combs through hundreds of news possibilities on your behalf. Lots of items hit the cutting room floor! Why?
• We know your time is important so we limit the number of posts each week to 7-15, captured in one email with links to all news stories.
• The Weekly Review is a CMLE service and takes roughly 25% of our staff time!
• Do you have staff that aren’t receiving the weekly review? Get them added by sending them to this link: http://bit.ly/CMLEsubscribe
• Occasionally we will be asking you to complete poll’s. We hope you’ll take the time to help us collect information about what you’re doing at your library.
• Traditionally, reader’s favorite blog posts are about library/media center happenings in the region. Have a subject or idea for a story? Feel free to submit your stories at admin@cmle.org anytime.

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

Retirements or Staffing Changes?

Spring LambThis is the time of year we ask for your help in identifying retirements or staffing changes that will happen at the end of this academic year. Unfortunately, if we are not made aware of these changes, we often  have no way of telling that we need to make contact with  new recruits in the Fall. Sometimes locations simply fall off of our radar as a result of these communication breakdowns.  Needless to say, we also want to  give recognition to  proud retirees too! They have worked hard and deserve some recognition before the end of the year. Thanks in advance for any information you can provide about changes in your setting or in other settings. Once you give us the tip, we are happy to track down the details! Send email to admin@cmle.org.

P.S. We would be happy to shine the light on other staff accomplishments too, so don’t be shy about sharing those too. Did someone get promoted or receive a special award?  Use the same email address, use subject line Staff Accomplishments. We will compile and share through our communication streams soon.

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/lah599f, licensed under CC BY 2.0
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

100 Things Kids Will Miss (if they don’t have a Teacher Librarian in their School)!

Some rights reserved by eyllom
Some rights reserved by eyl

This list is back by popular demand! And now in handy poster form.

Use this list as a proactive way to share the merits of school library programming and staffing. It is taken from Standards for the 21st Century Learner by the American Association of School Librarians, suggestions from members of the American Association of School Librarians, and students in the school libraries of the United States. Released by Dr. Nancy Everhart President, American Association of School Librarians May 19, 2011.

Tip: This list would be good to keep on hand in case you need to defend the existence of the media center in the future too!

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

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!

na_3

 

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!