Meeting up with your colleagues!

What works for you?

 

In response to member requests, CMLE is going to set up a regular monthly gathering. This will be an opportunity for members from all types of libraries and from across the system to get together casually, to chat, to have lunch or dinner, and to just get a chance to talk to each other in person. (And if you want to talk about non-library things, that’s fine too! This is your chance to just hang out with library colleagues; so discuss whatever you want!)

Click to tell us what time (lunch/dinner) and day (Monday – Friday) would work best for you. Right now Wednesday dinner time is leading the voting, so be sure to chime in if that is not a good day/time for you! We anticipate these will happen monthly, and will create a schedule for the first six months of 2017 to share with you.

While you can not know your schedule in detail for the next six months, we ask that you make some predictions about days and times that you think you would be most likely to be able to join colleagues for an hour or two. We will move the location around, so people from across the system can all have a chance at a shorter drive!

Pick your day and time. And if you have suggestions on some public places to meet – think coffee, food, possibly adult beverages, and space for us to spread out – leave them below, or email them to us at admin@cmle.org!

If you didn’t already click: here it is again!

Updates from the State Library Services

Updates from State Library Services

Calling All Kid Filmmakers!
The deadline to submit films for the 2016-2017 90-Second Newbery Film Festival is January 7, 2017. Make sure you complete and send those films in! The third annual Minnesota screening of the best local entries is on Saturday, February 25, 2017, 3-4:30 p.m., at Hennepin County Library – Minneapolis Central. Mark your calendars and make your free reservation for the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival. Co-hosts of the event will be James Kennedy (90-Second Newbery founder and middle grade author of The Order of Odd-Fish) and Kelly Barnhill (Minneapolis author of The Girl Who Drank the Moon). Please download and print a promotional poster to help spread the word about this popular event. For more details, please contact Jen Verbrugge (651-582-8356).

Tax Season Is Rapidly Approaching – Order Outreach Materials Today
Your library probably receives at least a few questions about taxes during the tax season. State Library Services is working again with Prepare + Prosper’s statewide outreach campaign, Claim it!, and the Department of Revenue to provide your library with free resources and an informational webinar.

Order outreach materials from Prepare + Prosper for your library to help individuals find out if they qualify for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit and to help them locate a free tax preparation site. Place your 2017 Claim it! order today to receive these free materials in time for tax season.

Prepare + Prosper and the Department of Revenue recently hosted a webinar for libraries with resources and information to help you during the 2017 tax season. Please contact Emily Kissane (651-582-8508) with questions or for the link to the archived recording.

Animals and stress relief

Animals can be great antidote to workplace stress!

Watching fish swim, patting a kitty, walking with a dog – it can all help to reduce stress, lower blood pressure, and diminish the symptoms of anxiety. Ahhhh….what could be nicer?

If your library has a fish tank, or a resident cat, or a therapy dog who visits and wouldn’t mind taking a break from listening to kids read so she can listen to librarians talk about their day – you are set! If you don’t have one at hand, there are plenty of other ways to watch some relaxing fish. Many aquariums have live cams, where you can enjoy watching some fish swimming all over the world!

Let’s Get Together! A very brief survey

In response to member requests, CMLE is going to set up a regular monthly gathering. This will be an opportunity for members from all types of library and from across the system to get together casually, to chat, to have lunch or dinner, and to just get a chance to talk to each other in person. (And if you want to talk about non-library things, that’s fine too! This is your chance to just hang out with library colleagues; so discuss whatever you want!)

Click to tell us what time (lunch/dinner) and day (Monday – Friday) would work best for you.

We anticipate these will happen monthly, and will create a schedule for the first six months of 2017 to share with you.

While you can not know your schedule in detail for the next six months, we ask that you make some predictions about days and times that you think you would be most likely to be able to join colleagues for an hour or two. We will move the location around, so people from across the system can all have a chance at a shorter drive!

Pick your day and time below. And if you have suggestions on some public places to meet – think coffee, food, possibly adult beverages, and space for us to spread out – leave them below, or email them to us at admin@cmle.org!

 

If you didn’t already click: here it is again!

Do you have training materials to share??

let’s share training!

Help!

At CMLE Headquarters we are working to assemble all kinds of library information you can use as you reach out to your communities. We have plans for all kinds of things, and are already working to add more material to our website so it will be useful to you. This collection of information will be one of the benefits of belonging to the CMLE system; so you can let us know what kind of information would be helpful to you!

One project we are starting is collecting training material on using online resources.We want to have this all in one handy spot, so when you need material on a resource you do not know, or when someone new joins a library, or you want to give instructions to patrons who are remote, nobody has to recreate things from scratch that already exist.

Have you used, or created, some training material that really worked for your patrons? We would love it if you shared it with us, so we could share it around the system! Do you have links to material already out there on the Web? Send them to us!

We are looking for training materials from all types of libraries across the system. An advantage to being part of a multi-type system is that we have similar needs, and approach them in different ways. That kind of perspective can be helpful to everyone else, as we work to improve our training for patrons!

You can send ideas, Office documents of all sorts, links to good training, names of people who know good things about our online resources, and anything else you have to share to us: admin@cmle.org.

Thanks for your help!