Introducing MALF's New Website!

We have an exciting announcement to share – and National Friends of Libraries Week seems like the perfect time to do it. After a months-long research and design process, MALF has just launched a brand new website! Check it out for yourself at mnlibraryfriends.org.

Our mission at MALF has always been to connect Friends of the Library – both to one another, and to grants, educational opportunities, and other resources to support their work. Our revitalized web presence will help us do this even better.

New features, most of which were suggested by members, include:

Community Calendar. We’ve heard loud and clear that our Friends members want to know what their peers across the state are up to – and to cross-promote events happening regionally. We can now welcome crowdsourced calendar listings from MALF member groups! As your next book sale, fundraising gala, or other marquee program approaches, be sure to submit an event listing.

Instructions: Simply email info@mnlibraryfriends.org with: 1) the date and time(s), 2) type of event, 3) brief event description, and 4) web links to where folks can go to find more information.

Multi-day activities (ex. book sales) are eligible, as are ticketed events. We request at least two weeks lead time prior to the commencement of your event. Only active MALF members may submit listings.

Member Index. In that same vein, MALF routinely fields requests from library lovers interested to know which Friends of the Library organizations are active in their backyard. Our new, members-only group index will facilitate this desire to be in community with each other. You can search by keyword, geographic region, or alphabetically.

Details are taken from our member database, which is updated annually as Friends groups renew their MALF membership. However, you do not need to be affiliated with MALF to access the feature. (If you are listed and wish to update contact details – or are not listed and believe this is an error – please email info@mnlibraryfriends.org to have this remedied.)

Video Archive. Over the past three years, MALF has hosted webinars and conferences on a range of topics of interest to Friends: fundraising, membership, board recruitment, marketing, book sales and more. While most programs have been available for replay, there hasn’t been a good long-term repository for this valuable content.

Until now! Visit our new video archive to access this library, as well as author talks by Minnesota writers like William Kent Krueger, Lorna Landvik, and Kate DiCamillo.  

Blog. MALF’s blog was the most popular component of our “old” website. Readers will be pleased to hear that it isn’t going anywhere! However, this piece of the website has a totally refreshed look and more robust tagging capabilities. Check it out here.