Tag Archives: Trends

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Where Have the Media Specialists Gone in 2015?

We’ve Crunched the Data! This is the fifth year that CMLE has been pulling the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) data and studying the slow decline of school library media specialists in our CMLE twelve-county region. Sharing the data is our attempt to engage people in helping think of solutions to this issue. If there is inadequate media specialist staffing in high schools, are students going to be prepared with the skills they need to be successful in college? Will middle schoolers be prepared to do high school work, and when students have no library program at school, are they simply going to the public library for assistance? Are the public libraries funded or staffed to absorb this work on a large scale? Everyone is stretched for resources, so it is critical that K-12, public, and academic libraries all step up to do their part.

Without further ado, here is data for Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd and Wright counties in MN. In a nutshell, the grim news is…..

  • 90 individual schools (45%) in Central MN have no licensed media specialist. This compares with 79 individual schools in 2014, 53 in 2013, and 48 in 2012.
  • 52% of the schools without a media specialist are middle, secondary, or high schools. A whopping 70% of secondary schools are functioning without licensed staff!
  • 43 elementary schools have no media specialist (compared to 38 in 2014 and 28 in 2013), yet as far as I know, we are still focused statewide on demonstrating reading proficiency by 3rd grade!
  • 16 out of 52 districts (31%) have no media specialist in any school in the district. This compares to 16 in 2014, 14 in 2013, and 9 in 2012!
  • Is there any good news? Yes. The great news is that 35% of CMLE schools have a full time media specialist. Let’s applaud those school administrators for understanding the value of maintaining a professionally staffed school media center.

According to public 2014-2015 MDE data, here are the CMLE school districts with no licensed media specialists in any school: Annandale, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa, Bertha Hewitt, Browerville, Eagle Valley, East Central, Foley, Kimball, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Maple Lake, McGregor, Onamia, Royalton, Staples-Motley, Swanville, and Willow River. Are parents in these districts aware of this issue?

CMLE will use this data in its advocacy work, in targeting its programming, and in working statewide to bring attention to this growing problem. How can we change this trend?  All Minnesota students deserve a high quality, K-12 academic experience that prepares them for the next step in their life. We need students to be able to proficiently use  the research process and to think critically about competing sources of information. These are key lifelong skills needed by all high-functioning members of society.

If you have comments, solutions, or ideas, please email me at papost@cmle.org

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

10 Big Deal Library Issues of 2014

Number 10I love this time of year, when our online publishing friends take a shot at what they deem as a big deal in the past year. In the ongoing flood of information, I find it enormously helpful to have someone else take stock, and flag important items and developments. A lot happens in one year!

In a list of 10 items furnished by Publishers Weekly (PW), it is not surprising that eBooks has a firm hold, and it is helpful to review the progress that has been made in that arena.

Which item am I most excited about? I am particularly energized and hopeful about the role of libraries in the self-publishing community (item 8). What about you, which of the listed items renews your hope and gets you excited?

Review the PW list of ten here!

Patricia-

Image credit: http://tinyurl.com/q9kqffb, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

 

Academic, General, Public, School Media Specialist, Special

Where Have the Media Specialists Gone in 2014?

This is the fourth year that CMLE has been pulling the Minnesota Department of Education (MDE) data and studying the slow decline of school library media specialists in our CMLE twelve-county region. Sharing the data is our attempt to engage people in helping  think of solutions to this issue. If there is inadequate media specialist staffing in high schools, are students going to be prepared with the skills they need to be successful in college? Will middle schoolers be prepared to do high school work, and when students have no library program at school, are they simply going to the public library for assistance? Are the public libraries funded or staffed to absorb this work on a large scale? Everyone is stretched for resources, so it is critical that  K-12, public, and academic libraries all step up to do their part. Without further ado, here is data for Aitkin, Benton, Chisago, Isanti, Kanabec, Mille Lacs, Morrison, Pine, Sherburne, Stearns, Todd and Wright counties. In a nutshell, the grim news is…..

  • 79 individual schools (41%) in Central MN have no licensed media specialist. This compares with 53 individual schools in 2013, and 48 in 2012.
  • 52% of the schools without a media specialist are middle, secondary, or high schools. A whopping 69% of secondary schools are functioning without licensed staff!
  • 38 elementary schools have no media specialist (compared to 28 in 2013), yet as far as I know, we are still focused statewide on demonstrating reading proficiency by 3rd grade!
  • 16 out of 52 districts (31%) have no media specialist in any school in the district. This compares to 14 in 2013, and 9 in 2012!
  • Is there any good news? Yes. The great news is that 36% of CMLE schools have a full time media specialist. Let’s applaud those school administrators for understanding the value of maintaining a professionally staffed media center.

According to public 2013-2014 MDE data, here are the CMLE school districts with no licensed media specialists in any school: Annandale, Belgrade-Brooten-Elrosa, Bertha Hewitt, Browerville, Eagle Valley, East Central, Foley, Kimball, Long Prairie-Grey Eagle, Maple Lake, McGregor, Onamia, Royalton, Staples-Motley, Swanville, and Willow River. Are parents in these districts aware of this issue?

CMLE will use this data in its advocacy work, in targeting its programming, and in working statewide to bring attention to this growing problem. How can we change this trend?  All Minnesota students deserve a high quality, K-12 academic experience that prepares them for the next step in their life. We need students to be able to proficiently use  the research process and to think critically about competing sources of information. These are key lifelong skills needed by all high-functioning members of society.

If you have comments, solutions, or ideas, please email me at papost@stcloudstate.edu

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

2014 Ed Tech Trends

Image by Mosi. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons' licensing.
Image by Mosi. Retrieved from Flickr. Used under Creative Commons’ licensing.

It is easy to see how ed tech trends cut across all types of libraries. As K-12 students experience more tech integration in their classrooms, it affects how they approach learning, and flavors the experience they expect at the public library and upon entering college too. Some of our medical librarians feel the increased expectations too for digital learning objects and more integrated information sources. The short list of seven ed tech trends shared by iLibrarian recently are listed below, but don’t stop there, see her blog post which includes  infographics and more information on all of these trends.

  1. 3 D Printing
  2. MOOCs
  3. Big Data
  4. Digital Textbooks
  5. Gamification
  6. The Flipped Classroom
  7. Mobile Learning
Check this out:, General, School Media Specialist

The First Ever MEMO Unconference

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Participant’s hands had a death grip on steaming mugs of coffee as we assembled for the Joyce Valenza keynote, which kicked off the Saturday Unconference day for the 2013 MEMO Conference. Valenza was amazing as always, and I have reams of notes from her presentation; mostly new tools. Links will be forthcoming.

About one third of the attendees had attended an unconference before, which surprised me. The content of an unconference is based solely on the immediate interest of those in the room .  The rules were: NO power points, rule of two feet (leave a session if it does not suit your immediate need), everyone has a voice, everyone is an expert, and have fun! Then, pads of sticky notes were placed on the tables and we were asked to consider topics to put on the slips of paper to then transfer to a large grid at the front of the room. We were asked  to consider: What can I teach about, what do I want to learn about, or,  I want to discuss or collaborate with others on this topic. The suggested topics  sorted themselves out quickly and numbers were placed on tables to correspond to the numbered topics.

10-8-2013 2-05-05 PM

It was really hard to choose where to go, but then I remembered the “two feet” rule, so the stress was instantly gone! In round two, I chose the e-folio table, but most of us were there hoping for an expert or someone to lead the conversation. When no one took on either role, without guilt, I got up and ambled on over to student PLN’s which was better.

But the highlight for me was truly during the first round, I picked Being Influential. I was delighted and surprised to see that Stephen Abram, our Friday luncheon keynote speaker was prepared to lead the conversation. Stephen has many claims to fame and I have followed him online for years.  He is the author of Stephen’s Lighthouse blog, is a library trend watcher, fundraiser,  innovator, thought provoker, and has held several executive leadership positions in the library field; big names like Gale, SirsiDynix, Thomson, and ProQuest. Bonus! So, I and seven other professionals could sit around a table and listen to Stephen’s thoughts on the subject,  and shoot him questions about how to apply his suggestions to local situations. It was well worth my while, I took detailed notes,  and will share the details of that little round table discussion next week, so stay tuned!

If you were also at the MEMO Unconference, what did you think? Is this an event model that you would like to try in our Central Minnesota region among colleagues? CMLE listens to its member libraries/media center staff,  so if you have an opinion, make your voice heard!