Tag Archives: tips

Communication, General, Resources, School Media Specialist, Writing

Notable Date to Celebrate: April 10th is Encourage a Young Writer Day!

April 5, 2017 Angie

You probably already know that at CMLE, we offer a service called “Notable Dates for your Noggin” which feature special holidays and birthdays of authors, as well as publications of well-known books. In an effort to help you get more from this service, we’ve decided to select one “Notable Date” each month to feature. We will include a few fun programming and activity ideas too, all for you to use!

April 10th is Encourage a Young Writer Day.

There are lots of ways to encourage a young writer in your classroom, library, or life. Check out these great gift ideas for young writers or find some neat journals from Amazon. If you’re feeling crafty, work together and make your own book to write in!

Looking for words of wisdom on the subject? This article is written from a homeschool perspective but has great suggestions for encouraging writing in kids of all ages. Check out what author Anne Lamott has to say to aspiring writers, or read this article specifically aimed at helping teen writers.

Of course, the best way to get kids writing is to make sure they read! Going to the library is probably the best encouragement of all! 🙂

CMLE, General

Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas!

February 7, 2017 Mary Jordan

I know some of our CMLE members are already circulating games in your libraries; and it’s a topic brought up fairly often when we are talking about materials and services to reach out to communities.

Games are great, and very engaging ways to encourage patrons to come to the library! They can be somewhat troublesome to circulate, as everyone wants to be sure they have the materials to share with the next patron – and small pieces or cards can be easy to lose. You can usually buy replacements for missing parts to games, but it is another step to consider when you are including them in your collection development plan.

There were some ideas being shared online about circulating games, so we are sharing them here, to help you think about your own circ policies! Continue reading Thinking about circulating games? Here are some ideas! →

Academic, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Time for spring cleaning yet? Let’s weed!

January 24, 2017 Mary Jordan

I follow a bunch of library-related listserves, and it’s a great way to keep up with the discussions happening all across the profession. Recently, there was an extended discussion from a newbie library person about weeding a collection in a small library.

This seemed like an issue that would apply to many of our libraries here in CMLE; so as we start to think about spring and cleaning (or “still stuck inside to escape the cold for a few more weeks” and cleaning), it seemed like a good time for us to also talk about weeding!

Continue reading Time for spring cleaning yet? Let’s weed! →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, General, Public, Resources, School Media Specialist, Special, Training

Stress Management: Why Bother??

December 2, 2016 Mary Jordan

Stress!!

We all feel it, and the end of year can bring all kinds of extra stress for us with the semester winding down and holiday celebrations winding up. Working in libraries is no protection against workplace stressors; in fact, working with patrons – which is generally rewarding – can provide a significant amount of stress in our daily work.

I have spent a lot of time talking with library people across the country about workplace stress, and it was pretty depressing. Most of us are here because we enjoy our jobs, they provide us with a lot of professional satisfaction, and despite the problems we face libraries are still great places to work!

But minimizing discussion of workplace stress just minimizes the real problems we face. It is better to face the issue, and to help ourselves and our staff to resolve problems that can be fixed and to get some training to handle problems that cannot. Stress causes all kinds of problems, from an uncomfortable workplace to workers suffering from burnout and never able to return to their jobs. Employee health is an important part of providing good service, and stress can just torpedo that.

Everywhere I went to conferences to talk about stress, people would come up to me and whisper that they were glad someone was talking about this. They thought they were alone in it, that they were doing something wrong because they were feeling stress.

Ignoring stress does not make it go away!

Thinking that “real” librarians wouldn’t get stressed is incorrect!

Acknowledging this is an issue in our profession is important – and the best way to help us all to overcome it. We need to think about ways to manage workplace stress on the individual level, in our library organizations, and across the profession.

So this is our December Monthly Topic: Stress Management. We can’t fix everything in your workplace, but we hope we can give you some tools to work with and some ideas to think about in your library. Continue reading Stress Management: Why Bother?? →

Academic, Check this out:, CMLE, Public, School Media Specialist, Special, Training

Looking ahead: December's topic is Stress Management!

November 11, 2016 Angie

Winter Wonderland — Manage your end-of-year stress!

We know December is still several weeks away, but it is such a busy time of year, we wanted to let you know about this event so you can mark your calendars now!

We decided to make the Monthly Topic for December Stress Management. This is because the end of the year can be a stressful time in libraries. There is so much going on, and everyone else is busy and stressed so they are not helping to calm things down!

But this is not just a seasonal issue. Mary’s research into stress in libraries has shown there is a LOT of stress happening in libraries all over the place – probably including yours! Library people have been embarrassed to admit being stressed at work, even though we have plenty of stressors – but it has not been discussed often enough.

So in this seminar we will look at some common stressors in libraries, and identify some strategies for addressing them. And we will work through some skills for personal relaxation, to help us survive the end of the year chaos, then take our new skills of stress management into the new year!

We will offer this seminar twice in-person on Tuesday, December 6: from noon to 1:30, and again from 4:30 to 6:00. You are invited to attend either in-person session (they are identical). Feel free to bring your food! We will provide beverages. Web material will be available for members unable to attend.

Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange