Tag Archives: Minitex

Communication, General

Library Employees: Submit your creative work to Minitex!

Minitex is calling on all Minnesota library employees (from public, academic, special, or K-12 libraries) to submit their creative work to be included in a Pressbook.

Do you write short fiction, poetry, or create art? Send it in to Minitex to be included in the project! (And check out our Libraries After Dark page: we love featuring creative library people on our website too!)

From their website:

“The two goals of this project:

  1. To showcase the great talent that we have in our community;
  2. To learn how to create a Pressbook and teach others in the library community how to do it!

We will accept all submissions provided that they are your original works, and that they have not been published or performed for profit in other venues.

  • Formatting requirements for text: Microsoft Word
  • Formatting requirements for images: JPG, PNG, or GIF. 250 KB maximum size, 300 dpi.

The anthology will be an open Pressbook publication made available on the Pressbook platform. If not otherwise stated, all submissions will be granted a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International license.”

Don’t miss the deadline: Friday December 15th, 2017!

To submit:
Please contact Rachel Wexelbaum (Collection Management Librarian, St Cloud State University) at rswexelbaum@stcloudstate.edu or Bridget Reistad, Librarian, Lake Superior College at b.reistad@lsc.edu with questions or submissions.

CMLE, Conference, Guest Blogger

CMLE Scholarship: Annual Minitex Interlibrary Loan Conference

Reflection on 26th Annual Minitex Interlibrary Loan Conference
Mary Ramacher
Access Department – ILL
SCSU Library

As a result of attending this event, can you identify and explain a few things you can use/apply to your work or practice?

Several of the things I took away from the Keynote speaker were:

  • That the library needs to not just be welcoming to employees but that it should look welcoming when you first enter the building
  • To say “yes, and” to show that you understand what someone is saying instead of “no, but” when we can’t do exactly what the patron is asking.
  • An analysis of personality styles.

Our library had a very ‘sterile’ atmosphere when you first enter the building and a few years ago we put in an electric fireplace and some comfortable seating in the front. It is one of the busiest areas of the library now, which proves the idea of being welcoming. I am looking forward to trying the more positive approach of using ‘yes and’ as opposed to ‘no but’ when helping my patrons. The personality types analysis will be very helpful too when dealing with difficult personalities.

The session on statistics by the Minitex Director was very interesting too. Our library web page will need some work so that its format adjusts to any type of device for ease of use.  She also talked about 18-24 year olds reporting ‘digital fatigue’ so our idea that students want everything electronically will need to be reevaluated.

We were also informed of some improvements to WorldShare that I will be using immediately upon returning to work in Interlibrary Loan.

Mary Ramacher

320-308-2085

Access Department – ILL

SCSU Library

Books, Communication

Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project and Pressbooks

From Minitex news, by Beth Staats

” Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project and Pressbooks

If you missed the introductory webinar on the Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project (MLPP) and Pressbooks you can view the recorded webinar.  The MLPP provides online publishing tools and training information to support independent authors and small publishers in the state.  It’s available to all Minnesotans in hopes of promoting experimentation with self-publishing.  Pressbooks uses geolocated IP authentication.  Users must create an account to create, access, and save their book files.  To find out how a fellow librarian and author is using Pressbooks take a look at this recent Minitex News article.”

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

New primary source sets

Were you scrambling for primary sources for history day projects or other curriculum needs this year? Scramble no more…next year could be different!

Minitex has announced a new resource for Minnesota Reflections users (MN Reflections is a digital collection of more than 257,000 images, maps, and documents). These primary source sets will be an online resource for students and teachers. Each focus on a historical topic and highlight the related resources available in MN Reflections. Some of the topics include American Indian boarding schools in MN, iron mining, and Fort Snelling.

These sets are intended to help develop critical thinking skills and allow students to be introduced to using and learning from primary source materials. Read the whole article here.

Image Credit: http://discussions.mnhs.org/collections/

 

 

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Recap of Minitex ILL Conference

trendsThis year was the 25th anniversary of this annual conference, and a festive atmosphere was definitely in the air. Just when I thought I may need to fetch more caffeine, Lee Rainie took the stage for the opening keynote, which worked better than caffeine! He was brisk and energetic, yet thoughtful about the future of libraries. He admitted libraries (and much of society) is going through a disheartening, disruptive time, and that no one has the playbook yet . He also said we need leaders, that there are declining levels of trust in much of society. Not so much for librarians, who are regarded as friends in most networks, which makes me proud to be a librarian. Some key points I noted:

According to Rainie, there are six big puzzles for us to solve:

  1. What’s the future of personal enrichment, entertainment and knowledge?
  2. What are the future pathways to knowledge?
  3. What’s the future of public technology and community anchor institutions?
  4. What’s the future of learning spaces?
  5. What is the future of attention?
  6. Where do you fit in ALA’s Confronting the Future report? (30 pgs.) According to this report…”In order for libraries to be successful, they must make strategic choices in four distinct dimensions, each consisting of a continuum of choices that lies between two extremes. Collectively, the choices a library makes along each of the four dimensions create a vision that it believes will enable it to best serve its patrons” (see pg. 21 to see the four dimensions)

The program moved on to Katie Birch from OCLC as she dipped her toe into the past and the future of ILL. Interesting factoid: Year to date, When Breath Becomes Air is the most requested OCLC interlibrary loan title!

Participants were able to choose from three breakout session; I chose the Ignite sessions and was not disappointed! I learned lots.

Valerie Horton wrapped up the day with her thought provoking talk, Skating on the Bleeding Edge. She described innovation as the process of discovery. She also encouraged us to accept failure, that it is indeed the norm of experimentation. According to current business literature, employers are looking for people who can say, “I failed and I learned!” She concluded with a few additional facts: The next trend is “messy”, and we have to accept that we don’t know the right answers. Accept messy structures, partnering can be messy and frustrating. And, if you are burnt out and exhausted, you cannot reflect, think well, or innovate!

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/lfpv7xn, licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0