Tag Archives: Podcast

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Linking Our Libraries Podcast: Episode 210 Customer Service

Customer service photo

Want to listen to an episode?
  1. You can download an app, subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone – it’s so easy!
    • Apps we like include Pocket Casts, iTunes, and Stitcher.
    • Download any of these, search for “Linking Our Libraries” and hit Subscribe.
    • If it is not readily available, just enter this RSS feed: http://libraries.blubrry.com/feed/podcast/.
  2. Or, you can stream an episode right now on your computer by going to our streaming page, by clicking here.

Whatever tool you use, we hope you enjoy it! Thanks for listening, and sharing ideas on libraries!

Want to talk with us about this topic? Do you, your staff, or your organization need training in this topic? Want to write a policy, or develop a program?  We are here for you!
Click here to get started!

 

 

Contents of our information page:
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • The Basics
  • A Few Stories from the Front Lines!
  • Books We are Reading
  • Conclusion

This week we are talking customer service in your library: the good, the bad! Patrons, customers, or whatever you call those people who use your services, are the heart of it all – the reason our jobs exist. At our very foundation, we only exist in our jobs to serve these people. Some of them will absolutely be the best part of your job; they will make you happy to come to work, they will fill you with that positive glow of happiness in doing a good job, and will general be a delight! There may even be homemade snacks involved!

Other patrons will make you question your job, your reason for being in a library, and your very will to get out of bed in the mornings! When, not if, that happens to you, try to focus on taking a deep breath and remembering that this too shall pass. Go back and listen to our episode #206 on Conflict Management, and look through our material on handling stress in the workplace.

But don’t let the few lousy patrons be too big a part of your job! Actively keep your perspective focused on the great things you are doing to build community, and to enjoy the customer service aspects of your job! We are not going to overlook the tough parts of this skill, but we do not want to dwell on it and overshadow the good stuff too. So sit back, relax, and let’s talk about some good customer service procedures you can implement in your organization to make things flow better. And we will share a few stores from the real-life side of working with patrons all day!

 

Next Week:  we talk about technology training in your library, with Guest Host Angie Kaltoff!

CMLE, Communication

Linking Our Libraries Episode 208: Evaluation

Performance-Evaluation-Process-z

Today’s podcast is kind of a Part Two to last week’s podcast on Strategic Planning. In any kind of planning process, you want to know how things are going – and that’s evaluation!

Does your library do regular evaluation? If you are like many, or most, libraries – probably not. It seems like a lot of work to get started, it seems hard, and it seems scary: what if people say negative things, or you find out you are doing things wrong or badly?

We get it! First: take a nice deep breath, and let it out slowly. Taking a relaxed approach to evaluation can make it all easier. Evaluation can also give you some solid results you can show to funders to demonstrate your Return on Investment (or ROI) – which is always a good thing, whether or not it is required in your library. We will be talking about Library Impact and ROI in more detail in Episode 215 coming up soon – so subscribe to this podcast now to be sure you don’t miss it!

Remember that you are never alone! CMLE is always here to help you – whether you have 100 people in your library, or if you are the only person and kind of scared to get started. Supporting you is our whole mission, so never hesitate to call on us.

Contents on our full information page:
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Basics of Evaluation
  • Specific Evaluation Examples
  • Books We are Reading
  • Conclusion
  • Links with Samples

Want to listen to an episode?

  • You can download an app, subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone – it’s so easy!
    • Apps we like include Pocket Casts, iTunes, and Stitcher.
    • Download any of these, search for “Linking Our Libraries” and hit Subscribe.
    • If it is not readily available, just enter this RSS feed: http://libraries.blubrry.com/feed/podcast/.
  • Or, you can stream an episode right now on your computer by going to our streaming page, by clicking here.

Whatever tool you use, we hope you enjoy it!
Thanks for listening, and sharing ideas on libraries!

Books, Communication, Tech

Stay tuned for our upcoming podcast series: Books and Beverages!

As you probably know, CMLE has a library training podcast called Linking Our Libraries. We have so enjoyed chatting with our member Guest Hosts and discussing library topics. When people talk with us about this podcast, they mention that one of their favorite segments in each episode is when we talk about the books we are reading.

That’s understandable, because we are book-loving library people!

So we decided to add a second podcast, this one all about books! It will be called Books and Beverages. The idea is two-fold.

Continue reading Stay tuned for our upcoming podcast series: Books and Beverages! →

CMLE, Communication

Episode 207 Strategic Planning

Wikimedia Strategic planning 09

This week we are talking about Strategic Planning.

Did everyone panic a little bit there? No need!

Strategic Planning is one of those things that sounds scary and hard and like it will take you a huge amount of time. But really, it’s just thinking about the future and what you want to do in your library. Generally strategic plans will be about three to five years. After that point, it becomes tougher to know what is going to be happening in your library and in the world around you. The idea is that it is a long term plan. Shorter time periods are tactical plans, or project plans.

(We are working on a new Strategic Plan here at CMLE; so if you are in our geographic region expect that we will be asking you for your ideas as we create and modify plans to help serve our community!)

Today we are going to do a quick overview of the steps involved in Strategic Planning. Your planning process may be more complex, or may be more compressed – you should work on it the way that makes sense for your library and for your community. There are a lot of different ways to create a good plan; but these steps will get you there!

Contents on our full information page:
  • Introduction
  • Background
  • Guest Host Kathy Parker
  • Books We are Reading
  • Conclusion
  • Sample Plans
  • 30 Sample Vision Statements
  • 50 Sample Mission Statements

 

Want to listen to an episode?

  • You can download an app, subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone – it’s so easy!
    • Apps we like include Pocket Casts, iTunes, and Stitcher.
    • Download any of these, search for “Linking Our Libraries” and hit Subscribe.
    • If it is not readily available, just enter this RSS feed: http://libraries.blubrry.com/feed/podcast/.
  • Or, you can stream an episode right now on your computer by going to our streaming page, by clicking here.

Whatever tool you use, we hope you enjoy it! Thanks for listening, and sharing ideas on libraries!

Want to talk with us about this topic? Do you, your staff, or your organization need training in this topic? Want to write a policy, or develop a program? We are here for you!
Click here to get started!
Books, CMLE

Coming Soon: Books and Beverages!

2 Comments

Pouring champagne

Did you read our article last week on BHAGs? If so, you not only got a quick leadership lesson, but also a spoiler on one of CMLE’s upcoming programs!

Our library training podcast, Linking Our Libraries, has been so fun; and we have had a lot of good feedback from members and other listeners. We have really enjoyed talking about library topics, and with our library guests! And a surprising number of people have mentioned one of their favorite segments in each episode is when we talk about the books we are reading.

Of course, as library people, we love books! We like reading  them, we like talking about them. I spend a significant percent of my time, when visiting our member libraries, telling myself to NOT TOUCH ALL THE BOOKS. #TheStruggleIsReal

So we decided to add a second podcast! It will be called Books and Beverages. The idea is two-fold.

  • First: we want to chat about books, and to have fun doing it! There are so many great books to read out there, that we are establishing a weekly theme. (Otherwise, we might spend too much time on my go-to genre of Urban Fantasy, and talk about werewolves every week! Have you read Patricia Briggs’ Mercy Thompson series? Do so!!)
  • Second: we do like to provide some educational content to our work. So this podcast will also help library people in their Reader’s Advisory work! If you don’t do that – no worries. We will be talking about fun stuff; but there will also be material available on our website to help you learn more about RA work, and about each week’s genre in specific.

We want this to be fun – like a book group! Instead of making book assignments (we already have that!), we just want to hang out with you and chat. We are inviting in guests to be part of each episode, to get a diverse set of ideas and suggestions. We will talk about our favorites, or be baffled about the genre. We will share titles we loved, we will talk about the books we just couldn’t finish, and everyone will leave with ideas for at least a new book or two to read!

And of course, we will have the one thing that really makes a book group complete: beverages. As we start each episode, we will be enjoying our beverages; and as you – the listener – are also members of this book group, you should also have a beverage! If you are listening at 9pm, and your beverage of choice is a glass of wine – great! If you are listening at 9am, and your beverage is a steaming mug of coffee – great! And if you have having a day that requires you to reverse those – we are not judging!

Just take a few minutes to sit back, relax, and sip along with us as we talk about books.

It will be fun. We will all get some good book ideas. And we will all have some time to just enjoy being together for a while, with our books.

Books. Beverages. Libraries. What could be better?

Our first episode will drop Tuesday, October 17. In the meantime, keep listening to our Linking Our Libraries episodes, dropping every Thursday morning!

Would you like to be a Guest Host on Books and Beverages? Are you passionate about your genre?? We want to hang out with you and talk about books!
Fill out the form below, and tell us your genre. We will try to get to everyone, and if we miss you this season, there will be many, many more!
What genre do you love? (Pick as many as you want!)(required)