CMLE members – we passed this information on to you earlier, but want to be sure you know the deadline is approaching!!
Do you have a program that was successful? A neat new material? A process that you started? A huge disaster that you were able to fix? Any of these would be interesting to share with your library colleagues!
If you have not done a poster before, no problem! At CMLE Headquarters, we are available to help you with your application now, and with the poster itself before the conference. Just email, call, or drop by to talk with us about
The ALA Annual Conference, where these will be presented, is in Chicago this summer. Having a poster to present is a great way to advocate with your boss for time to go! You can have a great time, meet up with all kinds of library people doing amazing things!
Just over 2 weeks left to submit your proposal for the 2017 ALA Annual Poster Session!
Reflection on 2016 ASRL Conference
Kirsten Vaughan
Chisago Lakes Area Librarian
East Central Regional Library
This fall I attended the annual conference for the America Rural and Small Library in October. It was a fantastic conference, and I recommend it to any small library that struggles with “doing it all” with limited staff and time.
A session that stands out to me is the first I attended, which was “Top Tips for Patron Technology Training,” which was led by Crystal Schimpf and Cindy Fisher. I chose this particular workshop because I struggle with finding a balance with my patrons. At times I cannot keep up with the technology my patrons want help with, other times I am too familiar with the technology which results in my explaining the tech quickly.
Here are the three tips Crystal and Cindy provided that I found the most helpful:
1) Self-Identify as a Technology Trainer—this means you should be intentional about seeking out opportunities to interact with technology on a regular basis. This way you add to your knowledge base just a little at a time rather than all at once.
2) Take Slow Deep Breaths– when a patron asks you an overwhelming tech question, or you don’t have the time to assist the person step-by-step. Slow breathing will help you stay calm and keep your explanation of the tech at a reasonable speed.
3) Focus on Quality, not Quantity- When it comes to one-on-One training it is OK to find the “teachable moment” which is the one thing the patron needs and concentrate on that. Sure the patron will not have all the information, but they will have gained one piece of information they did not have before whereas if you provide the patron will all the information, they may retain none of that training.
As library people, we spend a lot of time thinking about Information Literacy. It is our role to help members of our communities to learn about the information they need – not just to train them to look things up. Our jobs in this area are increasing as we see the numbers of people who can not identify fake news from real news. And of course, this is a much larger and broader topic – impacting things we do all the time.
Library people around the world are also working on this issue, and working to connect information with their communities served. If you would like an opportunity to go talk with some of your international colleagues, submit a proposal to the Fifth European Conference on Information Literacy. It will be held from 18-21 September 2017 in Saint-Malo France.
Although I have not been to this conference, I have talked with people who went in past years and really enjoyed it! I have worked as a reviewer of the proposals, and they sound interesting – useful in all kinds of libraries. Continue reading Information Literacy is International!→
Academic librarians – here is a chance for you to submit your work to the LACUNY Institute conference, happening May 12, 2017.
Do you have thoughts about the future? Do you want to share them with your colleagues? Consider submitting a proposal!
If you have not submitted a conference proposal before, or just want someone to discuss ideas or look at a draft – let us know! At CMLE Headquarters, we are here to help!
A Guest Blog from Simone Schloss. Simone is completing her final semester at Simmons SLIS and job hunting in NYC. She is currently interning at Tisch’s Lilly Music Library, Tufts University. @SimoneSchloss
Intended to address the challenges of economic information, the conference brings together experts to share their experiences at the frontier of economic data and information, to discuss problems, challenges, and potential solutions, and to identify ways to improve access to and understanding of economic information. The objective is to provide librarians and other information professionals with the knowledge, competence, and enthusiasm to disseminate economic information expertise to their respective audiences.
The traditional role of librarians in selecting materials and subscription databases is evolving rapidly with the growth of open data. More time is now spent advising users on where to find it, how to organize it, and what to do with it. The conference was a crash course in Federal Reserve acronyms such as FRED (Economic Data), FRASER (Archival System for Economic Research), and CLINT (Categorically Linked Timeline). A university professor summarized the opportunities and pitfalls of data. An agency director described the collaboration between public and private entities in the development and application of Big Data. Federal Reserve Board staff discussed best practices for replicable and accessible data, surprisingly uncharted territory.
Outside of panel hours, we helped ourselves to generous breakfast, lunch, and snack buffets. Complimentary evening get-togethers were sponsored by BRASS/RUSA and IASSIST. We were even invited on a private tour of the incredible Inside the Economy museum. I made dozens of valuable professional contacts from among the 120 attendees.
Librarians and library students with an interest in the social sciences: mark your calendars for fall 2018 and share in this free treat! Subscribe to the GOVDOC and BUSLIB ListServs so as not to miss a thing. It’s all about the data!
Interested in being a Guest Blogger for CMLE? Contact us at admin@cmle.org
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