I attended the Minnesota Library Association Annual Conference on October 11-12. This was my first conference since beginning my position as director of the library, and I was pleased with how helpful the sessions were. I predominantly focused on management sessions with an eye toward metrics and branding. I came away with so much valuable [...]
I attended the MN Library Association Conference in St. Cloud on 10/11/18 and 10/12/18. Some of the sessions I attended were: Friends Beyond Fundraising, What Does Advocacy Look Like, Programming Outside the Lines, Advocates Action Plan in a Flash, Whole Person Librarianship, Champagne Library Technology on a Beer Budget, MN American Indian Children's Literature, Stop [...]
My time at the Minnesota Library Association conference was incredibly valuable. I attended nine sessions over two days on a variety of topics, but I focused on adult programming and marketing/branding. I came away with a lot of great ideas for adult programming in the library, some of which I am planning to try in [...]
I attended the MLA Annual Conference on Oct. 11-12 that included many great sessions. "Little Coders: Infectious (The Good Kind) Activities for Preschoolers offered great background information on why coding is so important for preschoolers in today's world. The presenters shared many different ideas and programs that could be used with this age group using [...]
The MLA Conference 2018 was held in St. Cloud, MN October 11-12,2018. It was an excellent conference! I enjoyed the presentation "Hello City" and found the information valuable to building a presentation to the city, and which I will also use for county presentations. Geek Squad by Default gave good suggestions for helping patrons with [...]
The Iowa Library Association put on a fantastic conference! The key note speakers were engaging and informative both days. PC Sweeney, from EveryLibrary, spoke at length of how to advocate for your library and get the funding you need, as well as make sure you have connections in place to protect your staff during an [...]
One important class that I took was "Developing and Sustaining After School Programming". During this class I learned many new ideas for programs such as donut diorama, egg drop, etc., involving community workers within program such as donut diorama-police officer, egg drop-electric department, etc., teens need to be reminded things at least 7 times before they remember. [...]
On a bright sunny day, off we went for a 10.5 hour drive to Springfield, IL, the Land of Lincoln. This year I did a pre-conference done by National Library of Medicine. Talked about PubMed and how to do a health reference interview. We even did some role playing in that one. They gave us [...]
Apply for a Teen Read Week (October 7-13) Grant Teen Read Week (October) Application Evaluation Guidelines Libraries in Prairielands region can receive up to $100 to promote teen reading during Teen Read Week. Teen Read Week™ is a national adolescent literacy initiative created by the Young Adult Library Services Association (YALSA)
Work Confidently with Homeless Patrons The Minnesota Department of Education is committed to supporting the state’s Heading Home Together plan, and library staff training is one of our goals. All library administrators, staff, board members, and volunteers now have free year-long access to “Practical Tips for Homeless Patrons,” an online, self-paced tutorial presented by Ryan [...]