Tag Archives: Minnesota

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

MN Legislative Update

The following legislative update was written by Elaine Keefe, library lobbyist for the Minnesota Library Association (MLA) and Information Technology Educators of MN (ITEM).

Capital SunsetReceived Tuesday, November 18, 2014 at 1:48 pm

Today Speaker-designate Kurt Daudt announced the new House committee structure and chairs. Of greatest interest to MLA and ITEM are the following appointments:

Education Finance: Rep. Jenifer Loon (R – Eden Prairie)

Education Innovation Policy: Rep. Sondra Erickson (R – Princeton)

Higher Education Policy and Finance: Rep. Bud Nornes (R – Fergus Falls)

Legacy Finance: Rep. Dean Urdahl (R – Grove City)

Taxes: Rep. Greg Davids (R – Preston)

Property Tax and Local Government Finance Division: Rep. Steve Drazkowski (R- Mazeppa)

Capital Investment: Rep. Paul Torkelson (R – Hanska)

Here is a link to the complete list of committee chairs:

http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/members/pressrelease.asp?pressid=7880&party=2&memid=15345

Committee member assignments are typically announced in mid-December.

Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
cell 612-590-1244
elaine@capitolhillassoc.com

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

MN Legislative Update

Capital SunsetThe following legislative update was written by Elaine Keefe, library lobbyist for the Minnesota Library Association (MLA) and Information Technology Educators of MN (ITEM).

Received Wednesday, November 5, 2014 at 4:35 pm

Statewide Races:  Last night Governor Dayton was re-elected with just over 50% of the vote.  It is the first time since 1994 that a Minnesota governor was elected with more than 50% of the vote.  Attorney General Lori Swanson and State Auditor Rebecca Otto were re-elected and Steve Simon was elected Secretary of State, completing a DFL sweep of the state constitutional offices.

Minnesota House of Representatives:  Republicans picked up 11 seats and won a 72-62 majority in the House.  No Republican incumbents were defeated.  11 DFL incumbents were defeated.  10 of those who were defeated represented Greater Minnesota.  6 of them were in their first term.

The incumbents who were defeated are:

Rep. Roger Erickson (DFL – Baudette)

Rep. Joe Radinovich (DFL – Crosby)

Rep. John Ward (DFL – Baxter)

Rep. Tim Faust (DFL – Hinckley)

Rep. Jay McNamar (DFL – Elbow Lake)

Rep. Zach Dorholt (DFL – St. Cloud)

Rep. Andrew Falk (DFL – Murdock)

Rep. Mary Sawazky (DFL – Willmar)

Rep. Patti Fritz (DFL – Faribault)

Rep. Shannon Savick (DFL – Wells)

Rep. Will Morgan (DFL – Burnsville)

Contact Your House Member:  Now is the ideal time to send a friendly note congratulating your House member on being elected or re-elected.  Offer to be a resource to him or her on any library issues.  You can find contact information for all new and returning House members in a directory posted on the House website: http://www.house.leg.state.mn.us/hinfo/leginfo/elecdir14.pdf

Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
cell 612-590-1244
elaine@capitolhillassoc.com

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/p4m2ool, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Updates & Reminders from State Library Services

MDE logo retrieved online 12/17/13..

TO: Minnesota Libraries
FROM: State Library Services
DATE: October 20, 2014
SUBJECT: MBTBL job opening, GCFLearnFree.org, LSTA Mini Grants due, MLA thanks and 90-Second Newbery

Position Opening at the Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library
The Minnesota Braille and Talking Book Library (MBTBL) is seeking qualified candidates for a full-time library technician. Located in Faribault, the MBTBL provides library services to individuals with a visual, physical or reading disability that prevents them from reading standard print materials. The vacancy announcement and application form may be found online at the My State Job Search website. The closing date for the position is October 23, 2014. For more information please contact Catherine Durivage at 507-384-6860 or catherine.durivage@state.mn.us.

Free 21st Century Skills Training Website: GCFLearnFree.org
Over the past decade, the Goodwill Community Foundation’s GCFLearnFree.org program has helped millions around the world learn the essential skills they need to live and work in the 21st century. From using Microsoft Office and email to reading, math, and more, the website offers more than 90 free, self-paced tutorials, including more than 1,000 lessons.

Please join us for an informational webinar on Wednesday, October 29, 2014 from 11 a.m. to noon. Get a virtual tour of the site and learn how other libraries have successfully used GCFLearnFree.org with their patrons. Preregistration is not required. View the webinar. If requested, enter your name and email address, then click “Join.”

For more information, please contact Jennifer Verbrugge at 651-582-8356 or jennifer.verbrugge@state.mn.us.

LSTA Mini Grant applications due November 5
State Library Services is pleased to offer two competitive mini grant opportunities — Playful Learning in Libraries and Expanded Learning through Libraries. With streamlined applications, mini grants are short term grant awards of up to $10,000 for projects taking place from approximately early January through September 30, 2015. Applications for both mini grant opportunities are due on November 5.

Playful Learning in Libraries mini grants are offered to bolster the capacity of public libraries to provide welcoming and engaging play-friendly spaces and experiences that engage children ages 0-8 and their parents/caregivers in play and learning. These projects will also ensure that early learners experience a variety of playful activities that support their growth across the six domains of Minnesota’s early childhood indicators of progress. For inspiration, see what was done at the Park Grove Library in Cottage Grove with a Playful Learning in Libraries mini grant. For more information about this opportunity, contact Jackie Blagsvedt at jacqueline.blagsvedt@state.mn.us or 651-582-8805.

Expanded Learning through Libraries mini grants are designed to support activity-based partnerships between schools and public libraries. The overarching goal is to increase organizational capacity to connect students with meaningful out-of-school time opportunities that improve literacy, academic achievement, college readiness and more. For more information about this opportunity, contact Jennifer Verbrugge at jennifer.verbrugge@state.mn.us or 651-582-8356.

Grant opportunity documents, including timelines, are available on MDE’s grants management site.

Great to See You at the MLA Conference!
State Library Services staff members Jen Nelson, Jackie Blagsvedt and Jen Verbrugge enjoyed connecting with you at the MLA Conference. Thanks to all who attended the programs we presented and chatted with us about your libraries. Please continue the conversation — feel free to contact any State Library Services staff member by email or phone. We love to hear from you!

Calling All Kid Filmmakers!
The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is an annual video contest in which kid filmmakers make movies that creatively tell the entire stories of Newbery-winning books in ninety seconds or less. Making the film is a fun, creative and multi-faceted educational exercise. Kids write, storyboard, produce, act, frame and edit. James Kennedy, the founder and curator of the 90-Second Newbery, made his own 90-second movie about the 90-Second Newbery inviting you to take part.

Public librarians, school librarians, homeschool parents and teachers are encouraged to work with their kids to make movies. The deadline to submit films is December 20, 2014 (deadline extended to 1-16-2015 as of 12-11-2014). Inspiration and more information can be found on the 90-Second Newbery website. Want to make a 90-Second Newbery video, but are daunted by the project? Download this handy guide of tips, tricks, and strategies.

Mark your calendar for the first-ever Minnesota screening of the best local entries on Saturday, February 28, 2015, from 3:00-4:30 pm at Hennepin County Library – Minneapolis Central. Co-hosts of the event will be James Kennedy and Kelly Barnhill, Minneapolis author of The Witch’s Boy. For more details, please contact Jennifer Verbrugge at jennifer.verbrugge@state.mn.us or 651-582-8356.

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

CMLE Featured Service: Scholarships

More fall leaves...Are professional development funds tight in your work setting? Is the money to pay your registration to a conference in the budget, but there is no money for hotel or mileage, or  to pay a sub so you can be away from your workplace?

CMLE offers scholarships of up to $200 per fiscal year per individual for staff affiliated with  any type of  library in Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd and Wright counties in Central Minnesota. The scholarships can be used to attend workshops, conferences, library meetings or task forces, and other library-related activities to promote engagement and/or professional development. All expenses mentioned earlier are appropriate and we encourage you to use the scholarships even if it can’t cover all of the costs. And, if you use our scholarship to help with costs, feel free to mention to your administrator that you have used our program!

Need help paying for that  sub? CMLE scholarships come in very handy in settings that require your employer to pay for a “sub” while you are off enhancing your library skill sets. When you fill out the form, just indicate the amount you need to cover that expense. The ITEM (MEMO) Conference is coming up the first week in October and is in St. Cloud, the MLA Conference follows during the second week of October in Mankato. We would love to help you get there through the use of our scholarship program, but now is the time to apply!

We all owe it to ourselves to keep our skill sets sharp. Confidence and new energy often result when we  take time to invest in ourselves and spend time with our peers. CMLE would like to support you to that end. For all of the details and to apply for a scholarship, go to www.cmle.org/scholarships.asp. The application is quite simple and should take no more than 10 minutes if you know what you want to attend and have the event information in hand.

For more info on the ITEM and MLA conferences and links to registration, go to our Upcoming Library Events listing.

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

MN Library Legislative Update

CapitolThe following legislative update was written by Elaine Keefe, library lobbyist for the Minnesota Library Association (MLA) and MEMO/ITEM. Updates are included here by date in ascending order, (oldest to newest)

Received Friday, May 2, 2014 at 2:14 pm

Budget Targets:  Yesterday legislative leaders agreed on targets for the supplemental budget bill and the tax bill, so now negotiations on these bills will be getting serious. Senate Majority Leader Bakk and Speaker Thissen have set a deadline of Sunday night for the supplemental budget conference committee to finish its work. If you have not yet contacted the conferees to urge them to support the House position to increase funding for telecommunications equity aid (TEA), please do so today.

Omnibus Education Policy Bill (HF 2397):  The conference committee finished the bill last night.  As I reported on Wednesday, the bill includes the library services task force and the provision allowing MDE to make limited exceptions to the requirement that public libraries be open a minimum of 20 hours per week to receive Regional Library Telecommunications Aid.

Here is a link to the conference committee report: http://tinyurl.com/lq43mtp

The library provisions are on pages 136-37.

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Received Monday, May 5, 2014 at 8:53 am

Library Construction Grants:  This morning the Senate bonding bill was unveiled in the Senate Capital Investment Committee.  It includes $1 million for Library Construction Grants.  The House bill, which was unveiled weeks ago, includes $3 million.

Omnibus Supplemental Budget Bill:  The conference committee met over the weekend but did not reach agreement, despite a directive from legislative leaders to finish the bill by Sunday night.

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Received Tuesday,  May 6, 2014 at 10:44 am

Library Construction Grants:  This morning the House Ways and Means Committee passed a revised version of the bonding bill. Rep. Hausman was forced to cut $40 million from projects that were funded in the bill that passed out of the House Capital Investment Committee a month ago in order to accommodate an agreement by legislative leaders to fully fund the restoration of the Capitol at $126.3 million. I am happy to report that the new bill still includes $3 million for Library Construction Grants. The new bill does not include earmarks for the libraries in Perham and Jackson County. The bill passed and was sent to the House Rules Committee, its last stop before the floor.

Yesterday I reported that the Senate bonding bill included $1 million for Library Construction Grants.  The bill also includes language identical to that in the House bill clarifying that “Renovation may include remediation of conditions hazardous to health or safety” and changes the name of the program to Library Construction Grants.  Finally, it includes a $50,000 appropriation to the Bagley Public Library for renovation.  The $50,000 is a separate appropriation — it does not earmark funds within the $1 million for Library Construction Grants.

Omnibus Supplemental Budget Bill:  Negotiations on the budget bill were dealt a setback yesterday when Governor Dayton sent a letter to Speaker Thissen and Majority Leader Bakk saying that their budget target of $293 million is too high and he will not agree to that level of spending.  Here is a link to the letter

Elaine Keefe
Capitol Hill Associates
525 Park Street, Suite 310
St. Paul, MN 55103
office 651-293-0229
cell 612-590-1244
elaine@capitolhillassoc.com