Do you work with students who love reading? Help them enter the Letters About Literature Contest! Readers can write a letter to an author of any genre, living or dead, describing how their book changed their views of themselves or the world.
“Minnesota students in grades 4 through 12 are eligible to enter the annual essay contest. Sponsored nationally by the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, the contest asks readers to write a letter to an author describing how his or her work touched their life in a personal way.”
There are three different levels of the competition, divided by grade level, as well as a cash prize for national winners! You can get more information on this PDF flyer, or find out rules and enter the contest by visiting the contest’s website.
Meet our newest CMLE-HQ staffer! This nice guy arrived here from the MLA Annual Conference silent auction. (Thanks!!) He comes complete with a bag of books, and a librarian button on his vest. He has been designated the Official Office Bear.
He is currently making himself at home, checking in with the Team Plant members, and trying out different spots in the HQ to see where he may want to hang out. And he made his Instagram debut, to immediate acclaim.
But: he arrived without a name! We want you to contribute your ideas and your vote to give Official Office Bear a name.
Getting your voting skills sharpened and VOTE here for a name!
In a recent “Willy Wonka” style contest, the band, Coldplay, have revealed lyrics for all nine songs from the upcoming Ghost Stories album by hiding lead singer Chris Martin’s handwritten lyric sheets in libraries around the world. The lyrics were found in ghost story books in libraries in Mexico, Finland, Spain, Singapore, UK, USA, New Zealand, Ireland and South Africa. Clues to the exact locations of the lyrics were posted on the band’s Twitter account – twitter.com/coldplay – using the hashtag #lyricshunt. Fans were encouraged to help solve the clues and visit their local library to see if they can find an envelope containing one of the unique lyrics sheets. One of the hidden envelopes also contained a special Golden Ticket, giving the finder (and a guest) a free trip to London to see Coldplay perform at the Royal Albert Hall on July 1st.
An extremely detailed play-by-play can be found here, but for a more simple list about the library locations and what books the lyrics were found in, you can look on the band’s website.
Kudos to Coldplay for providing fans an opportunity to visit their local library!
Each year, the library at St. Cloud State University holds an edible book event. This years’ was a huge success with many fun and interesting entry’s. Check out pictures on the SCSU Library Facebook page or WJON’s article about the event.
CMLE is looking for news about other edible book events in the region and we’d love to hear from you. Have you held an edible book event at your library? Send us a link or any pictures and we’ll add them to this post.
Image by MLibrary. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Common’s licensing.
Gale, part of Cengage Learning , has announced the winners of its Libraries Are Beautiful: Inside and Out photo contest. The contest was launched in celebration of National Library Week, and the winners represent big cities, small towns, and all types of libraries across the nation. There were over 800 submissions, with over 30,000 votes cast. The top five per category were chosen by experts in art, architecture, and design. From the 25 finalists, winners were chosen by popular vote. Our own James J. Hill Reference Library in St. Paul, MN won in the Greatest Historical Treasure category. If you have never seen it, it is worth the trip to St. Paul.
