A group of CMLE members visited the Great River Library System’s library in St Cloud. And as you can see by the pictures, we had a great time!
Thanks to Karen for organizing this for us, and to Chris and Neil for being our gracious tour guides!!
Visiting libraries to see what is happening in other places, and connecting with other CMLE members, have been some of the top requests from people across the system. We will be making monthly group visits to libraries of all types in CMLE. Let us know when we can come visit you!!
Immediately, you can see that the staff at Great River is good at not only library work, but they are also artistic! This display of art works of all media comes with the creator’s name and branch location carefully labeled. A few things have already been sold, so you might want to dash over to check it all out!
For someone who is not regularly around small kids, it’s always a treat to visit an elementary school library – you see just how much thought goes into making everything size-appropriate for the patrons! That kind of usability is important in all libraries, but in a library like this it is clearly on display and fun to see.
This library is a fun open-concept design! No walls cut them off from the rest of the school, so everything feels very open and flexible. They are recessed below the hallways around them, so there is privacy and a sense of specific place; and I love this feeling of being connected to the daily activities around them.
Continuing the idea of design making the library connect with the kid patrons, this art on the wall was just lovely. Kids could see this and be really inspired to read books – but also to just dream about great things!
On Monday, Feb. 27th at 9am (before the library is even open!) we will gather at the front door and enjoy a tour of the library!
Please let us know if you are going to join us! (RSVP at the bottom of the post – feel free to RSVP for our other events, too!) These events are flexible, so should you need to leave early, we understand.
These visits are a chance for us to get a glimpse into other libraries to learn about the differences and similarities that we all face in the library world!
Please let us know if you have any questions, and we hope to see you Monday! 🙂
At CMLE Headquarters, our mission is to serve our members. One of the biggest issues our members have talked about with us is the problem of being alone in their libraries, or feeling unconnected from the work other library people are doing.
We are on the job for you!
We have a variety of opportunities for all of us to gather in person to chat about libraries (or other topics – we are fascinating people after all!), and to visit libraries.
If you are reading this, you are almost certainly a library fan. And of course, you would be entirely correct to be so – libraries are fantastic!!
At CMLE, we feel we have both lovely libraries and wonderful library people. As we seem to all agree on this across our system – it would be great to visit each other and to have the chance to admire each other’s libraries!
We are organizing monthly trips to libraries across the system, so we can all have a chance to visit libraries that are new to us, different types, and approach the same challenges in maybe a new way. Plus, going as a group gives people the chance to meet up in person! (We are not restricting this to just CMLE members; if you are reading this, you are invited!) Continue reading Group Visits to CMLE Libraries: Let’s Go!→
Partnering with libraries for visioning, advocating, and educating
