NATIONAL LIBRARY WEEK

Happy National Library Week! If you haven't already, take a look at American Library Association's post about it. In the theme of Libraries Lead, take a look at several of our public library partners' collections! Many of these collections are the results of library-led community endeavors to preserve local history and culture. Comment below with your stories of library impact in your community!

Emery County (UT) Public Library and Emery County (UT) Archives

This collection features a variety of historic buildings photographs from Emery County, Utah. The photographs were taking over the years from 1880 to 1990.

Grain silo is located near the old farm owned by Dave Jeppsen. Artwork done on the silo was by the old hermit known as Harry the Hermit, who made this his home.

Salt Lake City (UT) Public Library

This collection contains unique historic souvenir images and the Official Coat of Arms of Salt Lake City.

Tinted photograph of "The Amelia Palace" or Gardo House, in Salt Lake City. Frank H. Leib noted as publisher. Postcard number 511

American Fork City (UT) Public Library

The American Fork City Royalty collection contains photographs of the women who served as the American Fork Poultry Days queens between 1928 and 1941, and the queens and attendants for Miss American Fork for American Fork Steel Days from 1946 to 1983.

American Fork City Steel Days winners. Pictured from the left are Bonnie Jean Wanlass, Jill Lynn Smith, and Laurie Depew.

Provo (UT) City Library

Digitized historic photographs of the buildings, people, and history of Provo.

This picture shows the interior of the Startup Candy Kitchen. Left to Right are Minnie A. Startup Thornburg, Artie Harris Startup, unknown customer, and Hazel Singleton.

Tremonton City (UT) Library

Collection consists of 12 photographs of The Tremonton City anonymously donated to the Tremonton City Library.

Intersection near City Drug Co. Tremonton was first incorporated as a town in 1906.

Green River (UT) Public Library

The Green River Public Library is a repository for historic documents involving the Green River Area. Pearl Biddlecomb Baker played a key role in making the facility possible. This collection contains some of the documents the Library has to offer, as well as documents about the life of Baker.

Portrait of Pearl Baker as a young woman in Robbers Roost country.

Tooele (UT) City Library

A chronological collection of Tooele (UT) area history between 1849 – 1890. Compiled by local historian George William Tripp.

Clipping from Chronological Index Tooele County 1886

Newton Town (UT) Library

This collection contains a visual history of the people and places in the town of Newton, UT from the late 19th century til the end of the 20th.

From left to right Jerry Jenkins, Reed Jenkins, Chief Darrell Goodsell, Norval Jones, Rodney Fabricius, Norris Anderson in front of the water tender truck and the pumper truck. The recently remodeled building that used to house the school is also in the background.

New self-guided curriculum for digitization

As part of the Public Library Partnerships Project over the last year and a half, Mountain West Digital Library staff and partners helped design, prepare, and present training modules about digital skills training. MWDL was one of four Service Hubs in the Digital Public Library of America to participate in this national project. 

First we presented the trainings at three workshops for public librarians, two in Utah and one in Montana, as part of the MWDL network's assistance to public libraries in digitizing and sharing their collections online. Then, along with staff from the other Service Hubs, we recorded the best-of-the-best of the training modules for online distribution nationally. 

Many thanks go to Anna Neatrour, who as MWDL Metadata Librarian created a wonderful metadata section and contributed to much of the rest of the curriculum as well. We are also grateful to Jennifer Birnel, the project director of the Montana Memory Project, who helped make the workshop in Montana a great success and participated in the recording round. Thanks also go to Rebekah Cummings, who helped create and present many sections of the curriculum during her service as MWDL Assistant Director/Outreach Librarian. Key contributions to the digital reformatting module came from Matt Brunsvik from University of Utah Marriott Library and Catherine McIntyre and Brent Seavers from Utah Valley University. Together we are very proud to have been part of this important project and to now be able to share these training resources!

For more information about the new curriculum materials, or about the Public Library Partnerships Project, see the announcement from DPLA at http://dp.la/info/2015/10/07/new-self-guided-curriculum-for-digitization/.  Please use, re-use, and distribute these materials freely!

The power of the public library

Librarians love public libraries. It doesn't matter if we are academic librarians, law librarians, medical librarians, data curators, catalogers, or digital preservationists. We love public libraries because, for most of us, it was our first contact with the concept of libraries and probably why we chose to go to library school in the first place. Public libraries embody our cherished ethics: access to information, the right to read, and equitable service. They are one of the few places where anyone can go to find sanctuary, improve their mind, and engage with their communities.

Public libraries are also ubiquitous. As this heat map shows, public libraries serve 96.4% of the U.S. population. There are more public libraries in America than McDonalds or Starbucks. If that statistic doesn't give you more faith in humanity, I'm not sure what will!

Every library in America mapped http://www.theatlanticcities.com/neighborhoods/2013/06/every-library-and-museum-america-mapped/5826/

I blog about this statistic not just because I love public libraries but because over the next several months, MWDL will be providing digitization and training services to public librarians who want to make their special collections and unique artifacts available online. Town by town, these local collections make up the history of our region, and MWDL is so excited to help get these local treasures digitized and on the web for all to enjoy!

Announcement of Million Dollar Grant at DPLAfest

Hello digital library friends! Anna, Sandra, and I got back on Saturday from the first annual DPLAfest in Boston, and I am bursting with news that affects our regional digital libraries.

The one that I will blog about today is the announcement of a new $1,000,000 Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant to train public librarians in digital technologies. Under the grant, service hubs -- like the Mountain West Digital Library -- will collaborate with DPLA to build new curriculum and hands-on resources for public libraries to expand their digital capacities.

Announcement of $1,000,000 grant at the DPLAfest reception

What does this money mean for us in the Mountain West? It may be too early to say, but I see it as a chance for MWDL to train public librarians in digitizing their physical materials, creating online exhibits, and using DPLA/MWDL as a research resource. Public libraries have far better access to the general public than academic libraries and can facilitate access to our online historic treasures to audiences that don't realize they exist.

A big thank you to Bill and Melinda Gates for all the good you do!