Linking Our Libraries

Join us today for a special episode of Book Bites, where we look at a topic for a little longer than usual.

This week, we look at books to celebrate the Tour de France. It will last from Jul 6 to Jul 28, 2019, covering 3,460 km (2,150 mi).

The First Tour de France: Sixty Cyclists and Nineteen Days of Daring on the Road to Paris, by Peter Cossins "Starting in the Parisian suburb of Montgeron, the route took the intrepid cyclists through Lyon, over the hills to Marseille, then on to Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Nantes, ending with great fanfare at the Parc des Princes in Paris. There was no indication that this ramshackle cycling pack would draw crowds to throng France's rutted roads and cheer the first Tour heroes. But they did; and all thanks to a marketing ruse, cycling would never be the same again."

French Revolutions: Cycling the Tour de France, by Tim Moore "French Revolutions gives us a hilariously unforgettable account of Moore's attempt to conquer the Tour de France. "Conquer" may not be quite the right word. He cheats when he can, pops the occasional hayfever pill for an ephedrine rush (a fine old Tour tradition), sips cheap wine from his water bottle, and occasionally weeps on the phone to his wife. But along the way he gives readers an account of the race's colorful history and greatest heroes: Eddy Merckx, Greg Lemond, Lance Armstrong, and even Firmin Lambot, aka the "Lucky Belgian," who won the race at the age of 36. Fans of the Tour de France will learn why the yellow jersey is yellow, and how cyclists learned to save precious seconds (a race that lasts for three weeks is all about split seconds) by relieving themselves en route. And if that isn't enough, his account of a rural France tarting itself up for its moment in the spotlight leaves popular quaint descriptions of small towns in Provence in the proverbial dust. If you either love or hate the French, or both, you'll want to travel along with Time Moore."

Lanterne Rouge: The Last Man in the Tour de France, by Max Leonard " Froome, Wiggins, Mercks―we know the winners of the Tour de France, but Lanterne Rouge tells the forgotten, often inspirational and occasionally absurd stories of the last-placed rider. We learn of stage winners and former yellow jerseys who tasted life at the other end of the bunch; the breakaway leader who stopped for a bottle of wine and then took a wrong turn; the doper whose drug cocktail accidentally slowed him down and the rider who was recognized as the most combative despite finishing at the back. Max Leonard flips the Tour de France on its head and examines what these stories tell us about ourselves, the 99% who don't win the trophy, and forces us to re-examine the meaning of success, failure and the very nature of sport."

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We're on break!!

But, don't worry - we aren't leaving you!

Right here on this feed we will drop a quickie Book Bite each Tuesday. These are fast looks at a book one of our Guest Hosts has to share with everyone. Occasionally we will also have a special episode you may enjoy, with a little more time and a few more books. (Pssst! For example, if you like Harry Potter, you should probably be prepared for a good episode in July!)

Our sister podcast, Reading With Libraries, is also on a little break. (We need time to track down and record all these great guests!) Subscribe to it to get a new episode - with either a book description or a discussion of a whole genre!

We are the Central Minnesota Libraries Exchange. Our members are libraries of all sorts. And we have had such a good season that we just had to add on one more episode. This is a bonus topic - just for you! We are going to talk about stress management at work.

Check out our full show notes here!

If you have worked with us over the course of this podcast, you probably remember we looked at this topic back in Season Two. We link to it here, so feel free to enjoy both episodes. This is one of our most-listened-to episodes, so we wanted to add more info, and to be sure you are ready to handle the stress that comes with working in a library.

We will walk through a few different strategies to help you manage your stress at work. This is such a common issue - we would be stunned of everyone did not experience stress at some point.  We promise: you are not alone in being stressed at your job. You are not alone in being stressed in your family. You are not alone in being stressed as you walk down a street.

This week we have another special longer episode, with three of us each chatting and sharing a book we are reading. Enjoy a quick look at some fun books!

Sofia Khan is Not Obliged: A heartwarming romantic comedy, by Ayisha Malik. "Sofia Khan is single once more, after her sort-of-boyfriend proves just a little too close to his parents. And she'd be happy that way too, if her boss hadn't asked her to write a book about the weird and wonderful world of Muslim dating. Of course, even though she definitely isn't looking for love, to write the book she does need to do a little research . . ."

My Name is Asher Lev/The Gift of Asher Lev, by Chaim Potok

"Asher Lev is a Ladover Hasid who keeps kosher, prays three times a day and believes in the Ribbono Shel Olom, the Master of the Universe. Asher Lev is an artist who is compulsively driven to render the world he sees and feels, even when it leads him to blasphemy. In this stirring and often visionary novel, Chaim Potok traces Asher’s passage between these two identities, the one consecrated to God, the other subject only to the imagination."

"Twenty years have passed. Asher Lev is a world-renowned artist living with his young family in France. Still, he is unsure of his artistic direction. Success has not brought ease to his heart. Then Asher’s beloved uncle dies suddenly, and Asher and his family rush back to Brooklyn—and into a world that Asher thought he had left behind forever."

Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

Check out our full show notes page here.

In this episode we will talk about a fun part of library service - Programs. And by “fun” we mean the traditional definition, but also hard, time-consuming, and exhausting. Programs are integral parts to good library service, so let’s chat about doing them well.

This week we have returning Guest Host Kate, from the Great River Regional Library System, to help us get some ideas!

We are big fans of library programs! Sure, every library has books - paper, audio, and ebook formats - and that’s great. People like them. We have databases, magazines, toys, and all sorts of cool materials. Also great. People like those too. We help people learn to use tablets, create resumes, print documents, find medical information. That’s great too - some  people like those services.

But then there is a big hole in the possibilities of what a library can be in a community. Programs provide that missing link of connecting everyone in the community to the library , to the materials, to the resources, and to the services we provide.

In this episode we will talk about one of the most visible parts of good library service: creating displays. These are not just fun things, tho they are that! Your job is to get books and materials off your shelves and into the hands of your patrons. Good displays will help make that happen!

This week we have returning Guest Hosts Ariel and Lydia, from the Great River Regional Library System, to help us get some ideas!

Check out our shownotes page here, with links to lots of useful material - and links to the books we read!!

When you visit a library that does not have displays, or is not making an effort to sell their materials, it’s kind of depressing. Remember: great collection development would mean that you get all those materials out of your library and taken home with people. If you want to encourage people to interact with your collection, instead of admiring the books neatly organized on shelves, you need to get them off the shelves and in people’s line of sight. Publishers spend a lot of time and money on the cover art to sell the book. Give it a chance to happen!

Check out our full show notes page here!

In this episode we will talk about another important part of good library service: website design. Your website, or your webpage on someone else’s site, is your online branch. The world has moved online, and every single library, no matter how large or small, needs to be there. It’s an important way to share information and your resources - so let’s work on making it pretty good!

We are going to start by saying that none of us are website experts. None of us code. None of us have certifications or training. And you know what? We still built our website ourselves!

It’s not perfect - in fact this summer we are doing a pretty big overhaul of it, so keep an eye on things changing. And when things break, we sometimes panic and go to Starbucks for emergency coffee infusions to make it all feel better. In fact, as we were putting together the information for this episode, some unexplained glitch hit our site and we were working on resolving it.

But here we are. We have a site. It’s imperfect, but it’s fine. Problems will always happen, with any kind of program or service - and it is not the end of the world. The goal is just to keep building it and making it better.

You can do this too! And really - you need to do this.

Welcome back to Season Five of Linking Our Libraries!

In this episode we will talk about an issue every library staffer faces: patron questions or problems with technology, and how to answer them when you have no idea what is going on.

You can find our shownotes here, with all our information, links, and books we share.

This week we have Guest Host Ariel Kirst, from the Great River Regional Library System to help us get some ideas!

Working with technology, and all the various technology tools and devices patrons will bring to your library, is an important part of any library’s service to their community.

The main problem here is that you may not have a lot of training (or any!), and may not know how to use these devices or tools yourself.

Sorry – we aren’t going to magically give you all the answers. We don’t have them. But we are going to walk through some ideas you can use in your own work to better answer tech questions – even when you have no idea what’s going on!

Thanks to Ariel for coming in to work through this topic with us! Be sure you are subscribed to this podcast to get all the library skills directly to your favorite app each week. And you can check out our shownotes for each episode to get all the info we discussed, along with the links to more resources. Every episode we have created is on our website: cmle.org.

If you want to enjoy our book group podcast, subscribe to Reading With Libraries to get a new book, or a whole new genre, each week.

Thank you listening today for joining us! Check back in with us next week for another library competency – we are looking forward to more chatting about library work.

In this episode we will talk about the service most people think of first when they think about cool things libraries do: Children’s Services. While it’s not the only thing we do, it’s important

This week we have returning Guest Host Kelly Groth, from the Great River Regional Library System to help us get some ideas!

Check out our shownotes page here!

We are big fans of the idea that kids are important parts of any library – public, school, even special library organizations. So we support the idea that service to kids is not just handing them a moldy, torn book from the 80s, or doing the same story time, or having no posters on the walls. It’s not actively working to shush them over anything else, or to ensure they are on their best behavior in the library.

Instead our job is to do just what we do with every patron: actively work to connect the patron to the information resources we provide. That might be books, or computers, or programming. We are filled with so many great things – let’s be sure they are shared with kids!

In this episode we will talk about one of the foundations of all library service: Collection Development. Without good collections, we might be nice places to visit - but it’s not a good library.

This week we have returning Guest Host Amy, from the Great River Regional Library System to help us get some ideas!

Check out our shownotes page here!

Collection development can involve all kinds of things - books, DVDs, periodicals, maps, online material, toys - whatever. Good collection development principles will be pretty similar regardless of the type of collection you are building, but today we will probably talk a lot about books. Use those ideas to go across all your other collection ideas.