Tag Archives: training

Check this out:, CMLE, General, Services, Training

Quick overview of the Needs Assessment survey

results
Information is great!

Thank you to everyone who participated in our needs assessment survey! The winners of the $25 Amazon gift cards have been notified.

As with all surveys, we wanted to learn more about the needs of our community. In our case, our community is our member libraries; and our need is figuring out what you guys need so we can better serve you. In any organization with a new director, it is valuable to spend this time asking around about things people want so we can keep building on successful partnerships from the past, as well as helping with the new needs a rapidly-changing profession like ours creates. Combining the information we learned here with the information learned in visiting our member libraries gives us a better picture of the things we can do to help support our libraries!

This will be a quick overview of the highlights of the results from the information received. We will be working on this for a while, and using this information to build services and materials we can offer to you. In any sort of partnership, things will keep changing and the work we do today will change too. We will be sending out another needs assessment survey in about a year and a half, to see where we are then, and what other kinds of things we can be doing.

The results here are not necessarily representative of all members, but they are giving us a basis to start thinking about things. People who are really interested in statistical testing and analysis should contact me, because I love to talk about that stuff! But this is designed as an overview, a place to start, and to have other information filled in from visits, discussions, and other sources around the system. So it may not be perfect, but every plan needs a starting point!

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

Working with politicians and funders (Advocacy Series #4)

advocacy
Let’s talk to the Money People!

This is where people start to get nervous when doing advocacy work.

“I don’t know what to say!”

“I don’t want to talk about money!”

“What if I ask, and they turn me down??” (And what if they laugh at me? And chase me down the hallway? And steal my lunch money??)

Fortunately, most of these fears are pretty groundless. But it’s worth taking a couple of minutes here to talk about some strategies for working with funders and politicians.

Advocacy for libraries is pretty easy! Generally, people like libraries, and see the value in having a good library. Sometimes you need to whip out an elevator speech on “this is why Google will never replace a librarian” but that should be simple enough. Rattle off a quick list of a few things your library does each week, and doubters are stunned into silence.

Advocacy is talking to people, telling them about your library, your materials, your services, and all the things you do there. Dealing with funders is just the same: tell them what you are doing in your library, and how you are spending their money. Continue reading Working with politicians and funders (Advocacy Series #4) →

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

Identifying Stakeholders (Advocacy Series #2)

Stakeholders are the lifeblood of a library. They are our audience and our supporters. We need to keep them happy, and to give them all the materials and services they want and need. We need to justify our expenditures and our existence to them.

In short: Stakeholders are a big deal.

But who are they? How do we find them? Could they be labeled (maybe with a nice bar code) so we can be sure we are there for them?? (Short answer: No. That would be way too easy!)

Identify Stakeholders

Identification is both a challenge, and the easiest part of it all. Sit down at your desk, or with your colleagues, and make a list of the first people you can think of who are important to your library – who have a stake in it.

Pretty easy, right? Sophomores, tiny kids and their parents. Provosts and Mayors. Doctors, prisoners, soccer moms. Essentially it’s the people in your neighborhood.

Continue reading Identifying Stakeholders (Advocacy Series #2) →

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

A visit to the St. Cloud Hospital library!

Angie and I are on a mission to visit all our CMLE member libraries – and we are making some great progress! This week we were invited to visit the library at the St. Cloud Hospital, by librarian Susan Schleper. We are sharing all these library visits with you, our members (and others!), to help everyone see the diversity of service we are providing across the CMLE system. And we want you to know what is going on in different libraries, so you feel invited to contact each other to talk about partnerships or sharing ideas for great service! Many of you are solo librarians, or working with others who are not doing the same kinds of things you do – but someone else in the system probably does it or wants to learn more about it. So: read, be awed by all we do here in the CMLE area, and reach out to each other! (And us! At Headquarters we like to partner too!!)

popular-collection
A nice place to sit, some popular fiction on the shelves – a great place to visit if you are in the hospital!

Most visitors to the hospital library are probably not as enthusiastic as we were to be there – but look at this location! If you are in the hospital as a patient or visitor – drop by to look at their materials. It can be very helpful to have a spot to just take a break; and the library can be that space. (I managed to keep my hands off their copy of the Hunger Games. But it was a close thing! Visiting libraries and NOT reading their books is really hard for a book-loving librarian!)

reference-desk
Reference desk

Continue reading A visit to the St. Cloud Hospital library! →

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

RUSA needs you!

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Are you a CMLE librarian who has some good information to share?? RUSA wants to help you spread your knowledge, skills, and abilities to people all over the place! Submit a proposal for your webinar or online course today!! Members – we are happy to work with you on your proposal and/or your training program; so get your proposals underway!

The Reference and User Services Association, (RUSA) seeks proposals for webinars and online courses. The proposals must be submitted by October 31, 2016 for presentation November 2016 to August 2017.

Submit webinar proposals using this online proposal form; there is a separate submission form for online courses.

Continue reading RUSA needs you! →