poster presentations are a fun way to meet people who do what you do!
CMLE libraries have a lot of great things to offer their communities and the library profession. And we would like to see you showing it off!
Do you have an interesting program? An exciting event? A neat way to organize, arrange, display, or circulate your materials?? Make a poster, and share it!
Posters are very simple to make, and at Headquarters we can give you all the help you need. It is a great way to share information with colleagues, and you have the chance to learn all kinds of interesting ideas from your fellow presenters – who will all be sharing information on a topic similar to yours.
You do not need to have a completed poster when you submit the application, so you have plenty of time to think about graphic ways to show your neat stuff! (The design element is pretty low key; everyone there just wants to hear about your work!)
And if you want to go to the Annual Conference (you do not need to be an ALA member to attend!), exhibiting a poster is a good way to help convince your supervisor you should attend!
Looking for a one-stop shop to plan out some professional development in the upcoming months, or begin work on some grant applications?
The CMLE website is here to help with that! We have our Continuing Education page, which features a Google calendar that is updated daily with new learning opportunities. Most of the events on the calendar are webinars or online courses, and yes, some are free! We also have links to organizations like Library Juice and the AASL’s eAcademy that offer their own training and development opportunities.
Our Grant page features both a Google calendar that is regularly updated and also a list of grants that breaks them down individually in more detail. We know that library budgets are tight, and it can be a challenge to run a library or media center on a small budget. Check out some of the grants or awards to see if they could be useful to you!
If you have questions about any of the Continuing Education or Grant items, or need some help applying for an award or grant, don’t hesitate to contact us! We are here to support you!
At CMLE we take our commitment to providing our members with information and continuing professional training opportunities very seriously. We will continue to build on the courses and seminars we have offered, and hope to expand things for you. The library field is fast-moving and ever-changing; and we are here to help our members to keep their skills sharp, and to be able to better serve patrons’ needs.
We have set up a Continuing Education page on our site, with a Google calendar of all kinds of events that might be interesting to you. Most of these are offered as webinars, or online classes; and a few are in person seminars or conferences. Many are free, and some require payment. We will also include professional conferences, so you can keep up with the ideas being shared in your area of the library world. No individual person, or library, will be interested in all of these; but we will have a broad range of topics, to be sure you have all kinds of possibilities for building new skills and making yourself more valuable! And, seeing some of the things other libraries are discussing – even if you do not want to participate in the class – may give you some ideas about new things to try, or new people to contact to talk further about a topic.
We will also be offering regular continuing education programs through CMLE. We want to be sure our members have a chance to talk about topics of specific interest, or frustration; and to be able to gather and connect with their local colleagues. So, we will offer monthly training at the CMLE Headquarters, as well as streaming it through Go To Meeting for members to attend virtually.
To build on the training we will offer each month, we will offer additional material on our blog posts on the same topic. In October, our Topic Of The Month will be the broad subject of Hiring, including recruiting plans, succession plans, writing successful job ads, and motivating staff once they have been hired. In November, we will cover Advocacy. In that month, we will look at connecting with your funders, identifying stakeholders, writing an advocacy plan for your library, and provide templates for you to use to contact people to share your good library news. And in December, our monthly topic will be Stress Management. By the end of the year, and in such a busy season, we know everyone will need some tips on stress and relaxation, avoiding burnout at work, and ways to increase your professional satisfaction in your workplace.
Take a look around the calendar, and feel add it to your own Google calendar for easy viewing any time! (Just click the blue plus sign in the bottom right corner of the calendar.)
Do you have other suggestions for training? Email us! We always want to hear from our members!
There are many interesting apps available for library use, and we are looking at some of them this week. But what if you want something that is unique to the special needs of your library? What if you want to stretch yourself and your tech skills by trying something new? What if you just don’t want to pay for an app??
You might be the perfect audience for this (free!) Udacity class!
Android Development for Beginners How to Make an Android App gives you some training in Java and programming for Android. “This course is designed for students who are new to programming, and want to learn how to build Android apps. You don’t need any programming experience to take this course. If you’ve been using a smartphone to surf the web and chat with friends, then you’re our perfect target student!”
Your library may want to reach out to patrons in a way that works for them, and speaks to them with tools they are already using. “Android powers over 80 percent of the world’s smartphones, and represents an incredible opportunity for developers everywhere. The next billion people coming online will interact with the internet for the very first time on a mobile device. Building for Android gives you the best opportunity to reach these users and make an impact — both in your community, and on the world.”
You may not need to connect to everyone in the world – but you do want to connect with as many of your potential users as possible; and an app you create may be one tool to help make that happen!
Looking to learn some new skills, or enhance your abilities in a particular area? The Minnesota Multitypes are here to help!
The Minnesota Libraries Continuing Education Calendar always has some events to check out. These events are open to all library staff across the state, although there may be some registration requirements. The seven Minnesota Multitypes hope that this calendar makes it easy for library staff to see what continuing education events are already scheduled. Libraries are encouraged to submit their own learning opportunities to calendar@mnlibs.info as well!
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
