Tag Archives: Podcast

CMLE, Communication, Podcast, Training

Linking Our Libraries Episode 205: Staff Development

Personal Training at a Gym - Cable Crossover

This week we are talking about Staff Development, and we have a Guest Host: Elizabeth Proell, from St. Cloud Public Library.

You know that to do any job in a library means you have to keep building and honing your skills. Everything we do changes, develops, and evolves – and this will never stop.  If there ever was a time in libraries where we could just coast along on skills we learned twenty years ago, those days are long gone! Technology, automation, and streamlining of all organizations and workers means that we are constantly looking for better, faster, cheaper ways to do all the work we do every day. And what that really means for all of us is that we have to not only keep up with things happening around us – but we need to be out there ahead of our patrons so we are ready to help them build their skills! It’s not just embarrassing to not be able to answer a question on email or web design or VR technology – it is bad practice.

We know it is a challenge!! Your budget is stretched to the max already, your time is also filled as full as you can get it. So we are here to help you! CMLE’s website is filled with information and links to all kinds of great places to go to help you build your skills.

  • We maintain a Continuing Education calendar.
  • We share all kinds of places to take classes, either for free or at a reduced cost – and we offer up to $300 in scholarship money to offset the cost of any training you can identify!
  • We are building webinars and in-person training sessions for you, to work though any time.
  • We are also available to come to your library (or archive, or history center, or other organization) and talk with you about some training ideas, or to do some training based on your individual library’s needs.
  • We have material on our site for this episode; and we also have material all kinds of useful library-related skills, available in our Skills Toolbox section of our site.

 

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!
CMLE, Communication

Linking Our Libraries Podcast: #203 Grants

It’s Thursday, so that means another new CMLE podcast: Linking Our Libraries episode #203 on Grants is here!

These can be wonderful, and bring your library new materials, equipment, programs, and services! That is all great! Of course, nothing comes for free, so they also bring you extra paperwork, reporting responsibilities, staff time, and the need to oversee potentially new programs. You need to spend some time weighing the costs and the benefits to your individual situation. Every grant will not be right for you and your organization – but if you find something that can bring you benefits: Go for it!! Apply! It never hurts to ask for money to help build for your community!

And of course, as with every topic we discuss here – at CMLE we are available to help you with this process. If you have never written a grant, but get some ideas after listening to this episode – we can help you put your idea together and turn in a great application! If you are an experienced grant writer, but want someone else to look over things for you – we are available to help with that also! We never recommend you creating grants alone; it is always better as a team project. And if you want CMLE to be part of your team, we are ready to help!

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!

CMLE, Communication

CMLE Resources: Linking Our Libraries Podcast

As we all prepare for a new semester to get started, and are wrapping up our Summer Fun Library Tour series, it’s good to get back in touch with library resources. And at CMLE, we are filled with all kinds of great things for you!

Each week, we will draw your attention to one of the many resources available to you from CMLE Headquarters. Our mission is to help build connections between members, across all types of libraries. We exist to share information across libraries (and archives, and museums, and history centers) – and we are always looking for more ways to make that happen! Check out our Subscribe To Us! page, for information on subscribing to all our stuff.

We will keep changing and providing new types of information and new formats, to meet the needs of our members. If you have a topic you want to learn more about – tell us! If you have a format you like to use to get information – let us know! Our entire purpose is to connect our 300+ members to each other, and to provide all kinds of professional information to make your jobs better.

One of our strategies for sharing information is to podcast it! Linking Our Libraries is our podcast, created at CMLE HQ. Each Thursday we talk about a different topic that may be helpful to our members – and to anyone across the Library and Information Science profession. (We like you all!) We talk for about 20 minutes, sharing professional information, maybe talking about some libraries, maybe chatting with a Guest Host.

We also have a short segment where we share books we are reading. We have heard from many of you that this is a favorite part; so stay tuned for an upcoming book-themed podcast! (Oh – maybe there should have been a spoiler alert tag before that? Well: Spoiler! New podcast is coming up this fall!)

The whole thing is deliberately cheerful in tone ( we laugh a lot!); and we keep each topic at a pretty introductory level. Libraries are fun places! So if you know nothing about the topic of the week – this is for you! If you need a refresher – this is for you! If you like to hear about the neat things happening across the profession – this is for you! Do you just want to support libraries? Again: this is for you!

Each episode also has a podcast page with our notes from the episode, links to everything we discussed, and often links to other material on our topic. If a topic is useful to you, we want to be sure you have access to the information in any format that works for you!

The all-important part of podcasting:
How do you actually listen to it??

Want to listen to an episode? We make it easy for you!

  • You can download an app, subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone/tablet – 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!

Do you want to talk with us about a topic? Could you use a helping hand in your library? We want to help! Tell us about it here, and let’s get started.

 

CMLE, Communication, Tech

It’s Here: Season Two of Linking Our Libraries Podcast!!

We are SO excited to share with all of our library people our second season of Linking Our Libraries Podcast!

We are continuing to talk about all things libraries in order to help our members and all library folks stay informed about important library topics. Some that we will cover this season include programming, tech training, strategic planning, and customer service. We have been lucky enough to get the perspective and expertise of some fantastic guest hosts (if you are one of those people, THANK YOU for participating!) and hope you enjoy hearing from fellow CMLE members.

Our very first episode of Season Two is available now: Episode 201 Community Engagement!

Tune in to hear about all the great ways that libraries are able to help their communities!

To subscribe to our podcast, download an app (like Pocket Casts, iTunes, or Stitcher), subscribe to “Linking Our Libraries” and all episodes will appear on your phone – it’s so easy!
Or, you can stream an episode right now on your computer by going to our streaming page, by clicking here.

Thanks for listening, and we are looking forward to Season Two!

CMLE, Communication

Our final Season One podcast: Information Literacy!

It has been so much fun to make these podcasts!

First, we had to figure out how to actually make a podcast. This was surprisingly tricky! There was no one single set of directions that told us everything we needed; so we spent time improvising, trying things, and learning from our failures. Learning new skills is a constant part of the profession, and it was (luckily!) always more exciting than frustrating to figure this stuff out.

We developed our own areas of specialization: Angie became the Chief Sound Engineer, in charge of figuring out all the technology; Mary provided the library content. Our assorted guest hosts provided energy and subject-matter expertise. It grew and built, and things got better as we went along.

And now we come to the end of Season One! Our final episode this season looks at a topic all libraries need to address with their patrons: Information Literacy.

You can find that podcast, and all of the others, on our podcast page. Or you can subscribe to us using iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, or any other podcast app you like.

Is this the end of the Linking Our Libraries podcast? Heck no!

Thursday, June 29 we will drop our bonus episode of Season One: The LOL Award Show. You can vote here for awards in an assortment of categories. Don’t like the categories? There is space for you to add in your own award! (Feel free to choose a winner too!) We will announce these on our podcast, so get out there and get going!

We are already planning out Season Two! Our first episode will drop Thursday August 10, focusing on Community Engagement. We look forward to all kinds of podcast excitement as we work through fifteen more topics of importance to our libraries!