WebJunction Illinois visited with school library staff from the DuPage Library System at the annual DuKane Institute. This segment shares brief clips from these presentations: MUVE it! Do You Need a Second Life? Doug Johnson, Director, Media and Technology, Mankato Area Public Schools, Mankato, MN Marketing Your Library through Video, Beverly Frett, Clow Elementary, Indian Prairie School District #204, Naperville, IL and Ann O’Keefe, Young Elementary School, IPSD #204 WebJunction Illinois: Meet Us at the Crossroads , Lisa Barnhart, WebJunction Illinois Project Coordinator

Live from WJ-IL

Co-sponsored by the Dupage Library System, DuPage County Regional Office of Education and the Kane County Regional Office of Education, the annual DuKane School Institute took place on February 29, 2008 with the theme of School Libraries for the Net Generation. With over 300 registered attendees, this year’s institute was not just for school librarians since any librarian who works with children, youth or teens was invited to attend.

Even if you were unable to attend, you can still get a taste for the day by watching the Live from WJIL segment above and linking to the resources below:

School Libraries for the Net Generation Program

MUVE it! Do You Need a Second Life? Doug Johnson

Simulated 3D environments like Second Life are being called Web 3.0. How do teachers and librarians get started using these new tools, what might they find in these worlds, and what are the learning opportunities such environments might present? Let Blue Skunk be your guide to this new medium of interacting with the Internet.

• Handout
• Blue Skunk Blog
• The One Afternoon Second Life Tour

Marketing Your Library through Video Beverly Frett, Clow Elementary, IPSD #204, Naperville and Ann O’Keefe, Young Elementary School, IPSD #204

The LMC Directors of Indian Prairie School District #204 created a video promoting their library media programs. Learn how you can do something similar. It’s fun and easy and makes a great impression on students, teachers, and parents.

• PhotoStory free software

WebJunction Illinois: Meet Us at the Crossroads Lisa Barnhart, Project Coordinator, WebJunction Illinois

Staff members in Illinois libraries have the benefit of working in a multitype environment which offers the opportunity for collaboration, cooperation and sharing among all types of libraries. Thanks to the Illinois State Library, there is now a place on the web that brings all Illinois libraries together and provides resources, continuing education, and the chance to interact with library staff throughout Illinois.

Lisa Barnhart, Project Coordinator for WebJunction Illinois interviews Kay Schlumpf, Digital Past Coordinator from the North Suburban Library System. Kay shares the history of Digital Past, as well as how to get involved in the project.

Live from WJ-IL

Transcript:
Live from WJIL: Digital Past
Interview with Kay Schlumpf, Program Coordinator, Digital Past

Lisa: Hi, I’m Lisa Barnhart, and this is Live from WJIL. Today we’re going to be learning more about an initiative called Digital Past that, in digital years, has been around for a very long time – since 1998. We’re talking with Kay Schlumpf from the North Suburban Library System, the coordinator for this popular program.

Kay, can you give us a brief background on how this program began and how it’s grown over the past 10 years?

Kay: Digital Past started in 1998 with a grant from the Illinois State Library which covered equipment and training for 15 libraries and the system staff at NSLS. It started as a homegrown database which we programmed in the back and we sent zip disks back and forth. We’ve moved up a bit and now we are using OCLC CONTENTdm as our platform. It has grown alot – we started with 15 institutions and have grown to 36 primary institutions, many partnering with another institutions. So, approximately 75 organizations have items on Digital Past with approximately 85,000 items in the database.

Lisa: So who would typically be using these digitized records, and how do they use them?

Kay: We have a huge audience. Anyone who is interested in the area or in Illinois or in Digital Past in genereal. There any many different users, including genealogists researching family histories, school kids using it for history fair projects, and producers and TV Shows, such as PBS and the History Channel. We get calls from all over the world – Japan, France, Canda, most recently we have been working with the BBC who are using items in a documentary they are producing.

Lisa: I noticed on your Digital Past web site that this program has also made it possible for libraries to provide something relatively new for their patrons customized online exhibits using their digitized images that are kind of a virtual gallery. For instance, the Brides of Yester-Year from the Cook Memorial Library, and from the Wilmette Public Library, a digital scrapbook of letters from World War I soldiers.

In your experience with the project, what has been the most unusual or interesting object ever cataloged for Digital Past?

Kay: There are so many interesting items ranging from a gun to an outfit, like the bride dresses. However, people are really insterested in the letters about Jean Harlow (Jean Carpenter) who was a student at Lake Forst Academy. She insisted to the head mistress that she could not wear the standard oxford shoes and required high heals to avoid problems with her feet. The head mistress wrote a letter to her doctor inquiring. The doctor responded that there was no medical reason why Jean had to wear high heals and he recommended she wear the more reasonable oxfords like the rest of her classmates. For the celebrity hunters we also have a photo of David Letterman. Our many civil war diaries and other historic documents are particularly interesting to historical reenacters.

Lisa: So who can participate in Digital Past? And who are some of your most recent participants?

Kay: Any cultural institution in Illinois can join Digital Past, including libriares, museums archives, historical societies. We provide the training and support for them, so instead of starting out on their own which is a huge task, we give them a leg up getting started. Some of our newest institutions are the Morton Arboretum and the Chicago Botanic Garden. Other large institutions are joining soon and we are very excited to welcome them. But you will have to check the website for that announcement.

Lisa: Thanks Kay for talking with us today. For more information about Digital Past, you can visit their web site at www.digitalpast.org or read more about the project on WebJunction Illinois under the Featured Statewide Projects area.

Signing off, this is Lisa Barnhart, Live from WJIL.

Lisa Barnhart interviews Bev Obert, Rachel Miller and Louise Greene of the Rolling Prairie Library System at the 2007 Farm Progress Show in Decatur, IL. The Rolling Prairie Library System has been active for several years promoting libraries at the Farm Progress Show. This year they introduced a new theme, “Think Outside the Barn @ Your Library.” Bev, Rachel and Louise share success stories and the excitement of libraries from the Farm Progress Show.

Live from WJ-IL

Live from WJ-IL Transcript: Farm Progress Show

Lisa: Hi, I’m Lisa Barnhart and this is Live from WJ-IL. We’re here in Decatur at the Farm Progress Show, and I’m with some of the members of the Rolling Prairie Library System Staff. Their staff has been involved with the FPS for several years now, and this year they have a them at their booth of “Think Outside the Barn @ Your Library.”

I’m here with Bev Obert, the Director of the Rolling Prairie Library System, and I just wanted to ask her a couple of questions and then she’s going to introduce some of her staff members who are here.

Bev, what made you think to get involved with the Farm Progress Show?

Bev: In 1991, the first show we displayed at Dalton City, and we felt that it was important for the libraries to go out there and talk to the rural people and tell them about the importance of libraries and the importance of reading and what libraries can do for them out there in the rural community. So that’s what we did. Since then, this is our 4th show, we’ve had a theme of “This is Reading Country,” but this year our theme is “Think Outside the Barn@ Your Library, and it’s been great fun to have it.

Lisa: Wonderful, and this is Rachel?

Bev: Rachel Miller is our Youth Services Consultant here at Rolling Prairie Library System, and Louise Green who is our Public and Special Library Consultant here at Rolling Prairie, and they’ve both been very involved and have created this great event for us.

Lisa: Rachel, tell us what has been the response here at the show, and also in your member libraries?

Rachel: Well we have had so much fun with this, and our member libraries have just stepped up and done great things for us. We have wonderful volunteers who have worked on a committee to set this up, we have people from our member libraries who have come in to staff the booth, they’ve given us financial donations, they’ve given us book donations to give away at the booth. We have just really been so happy with all the participation we’ve had from our members.

And as far as here at the show, it has been so much fun to talk to everyone about their libraries. We’ve been asking people where they’re from, asking them about their public libraries, where they get their books, and have had great conversations about what goes on in local communities and finding out more and helping share that information with things they maybe didn’t know about their local libraries.

People have been surprised to see us somewhat, but others have just been happy to see us. So it’s been a lot of fun to give away the books and talk to people about their libraries.

Lisa: Louise, what’s been your favorite success story from here?

Louise: Well actually I have two Lisa. Yesterday, we had some people come to the booth at different times, a gentleman and a lady, and they had their reading lists with them. And one of them pulled his reading list out of his pocket and asked if we had a particular book in a series that he hadn’t read yet. And then the lady pulled out several reading lists actually all stapled together, and she was all ready to go in our booth. So, I think, the show goers have kind of come to expect our booth at the Farm Progress Show.

And then I think the second level of success is that we have made this outreach effort portable, we’ve got it branded now, with Think Outside the Barn @ Your Library, and we have other libraries across the state of Illinois very interested in taking this show on the road to other farm related days.

Lisa: That’s great. So we’ve been talking about renewable energy here on our segments at Live from WJ-IL, so Bev can you tell us how events like this bring renewed energy to the Illinois Library Community?

Bev: For us, just hearing us talk about it, meeting the people, it renews our energy and makes us want to go out and do more for the public and for our member libraries. The people spend money and support the public libraries every year, and at the library, they can harvest a lot of information, but they can also get a lot of renewable information, and information that will help them to renew themselves, and we renew ourselves. So, the library, definitely a renewable energy source for everybody.

Lisa: Well thanks to the Rolling Prairie Library System staff for taking on this project, and I’m Lisa Barnhart, this is Live from WJ-IL, remember you don’t have to live on a farm to “Think Outside the Barn @ Your Library.”

Spike E. Cabeza helps Seymour gain some perspective on using WebJunction Illinois as a resource for this busy library staff member. With the pressures of the summer reading program , learning new technologies, finding time for continuing education, and feeling isolated WebJunction Illinois offers a much needed journey. All Aboard! Costume design: Rachel Van Noord

Live from WJ-IL

Episode Script

Camera comes on – Spike is leaning forward and says -Did you say my hair is sticking up?- then sees the camera and straightens up and clears his throat…

(Spike) Hi, I’m Spike E. Cabeza reporting live from WJ-IL. I’m here at WebJunction Illinois to see if I can talk to someone in the Illinois library community about what they think of WebJunction Illinois

Seymour walks on looking around

(Spike) Hey, hey, Seymour, Seymour is that you?

(Seymour) What, oh, yea, Hi Spike. Sorry, didn’t see you there for a minute. I need glasses but can’t find a place that can fit me right. I mean come on, hasn’t anyone heard of the phrase -four eyes!- Anyway, what are you doing here?

(Spike) Actually I was going to ask you the same thing. How did you find out about WebJunction Illinois?

(Seymour) Well, to tell you the truth, I saw the address on something I got in an email, and I figured, I’m so tired and worn out with work, I could use a little road trip, so I came down to see if I could catch the next train out of here.

(Spike) Ummm, well, I’m not sure you quite understand, but tell me more about why you’re so tired.

(Seymour) Are you kidding? Summer reading program, kids in and out of the library just to get a drink of water, computers breaking down, the board breathing down my neck telling me I need to keep learning more and more, and on top of it all, I keep ripping the covers off of the books when I try to check them out. I’ve got to get these claws filed down.

(Spike) Well Seymour, maybe you did come to the right place after all then.

(Seymour) What, you have a manicurist here?

(Spike) Uh no, but we do have plenty of things at WebJunction Illinois that can help you with your problem. Resources and ideas about how to bring more creativity into your children’s programming – I mean check out the story of the Bethalto Public Library, they actually brought in dogs for the kids to read to, stuff to teach you how to take care of your computers, and lots of opportunity to learn more without even leaving your library through online courses and continuing education. Plus, more importantly, you can meet up with other Illinois library staff to collaborate and share ideas and materials.

(Seymour) Hmmm, you have some -GOOD POINTS- there Spike (look at the camera), and it sounds good that’s for sure. To tell you the truth, I don’t have time for a train trip anyway. I think I am going to give it a try and see if WebJunction Illinois can help me do an even better job at my library.

Hey…isn’t that your Uncle Joe?

(Puppet moves across the stage slowly looking down – theme from Petticoat Junction plays)

(Spike) Yeah, he’s movin’ kinda slow (Pause)

Anyway, let’s go check out some things and see if we can’t help you go back to your library with new energy and ideas.

They start moving off of the stage the same way

(Seymour) WebJunction here we come – Hey Spike, you might have to read some of it to me until I get those glasses.

(Spike) Sure Seymour, I’ll be happy to help. (walks off the stage then jumps back in sideways and says -Woops, I almost forgot, signing off this is Spike E. Cabeza – Live from WJ-IL.-

-There’s Uncle Joe, he’s moving kind of slow- (Petticoat Junction theme song plays as a puppet moves across slowly and Seymour and Spike watch)

Lisa Barnhart, Project Coordinator of WebJunction Illinois, compares the new landscape of windmill farms providing energy to another new resource on the Illinois landscape – WebJunction Illinois.

Live from WJ-IL

Episode Script

Hi, I’m Lisa Barnhart and this is Live from WJ-IL

We’ve been talking about renewable energy and it’s benefits here on Live from WJ-IL. It costs less, pollutes less, and more importantly, it comes from sources that are virtually endless. It just makes sense.

Today we’re looking at another form of renewable energy, something we have plenty of in central Illinois – wind. Over my shoulder you can see a number of rather unusual looking structures called Wind turbines. Standing over 300 feet tall with a rotor span anywhere from 150 to 300 feet, they’re difficult to miss on the flatlands of central Illinois.

Last time on Live from WJ-IL I introduced you to a source of renewable energy for your job – WebJunction Illinois. I already mentioned the great resources and opportunities for networking you’ll find there, but did you know that as a registered Illinois user, you’ll also have access to free training opportunities on topics ranging from how to learn online to software applications to copyright in the classroom and dealing with difficult people.

More importantly, you’ll find a renewable source of energy powered by the expertise and experience of the Illinois Library Community. More later, but for now, make a commitment to tap into the renewable energy of WebJunction Illinois. It just makes sense.

From the cornfields of central Illinois, Lisa Barnhart, Project Coordinator of WebJunction-Illinois, shares some of the great features WJ-IL will offer library staff throughout the state. The key phrase is “renewable energy” – from the earth and from those who inhabit it.

Live from WJ-IL

Episode Script

Hi, I’m Lisa Barnhart and this is Live from WJ-IL

I’m standing out here in a cornfield in central Illinois. If you haven’t driven through the countryside of rural Illinois recently, you may not be aware of how much corn the farmers have planted this year. And even if you haven’t seen it, I’m pretty sure you know why – it’s Ethanol – that renewable source of energy that’s been getting so much press lately.

So what’s all the fuss about ethanol and about renewable energy in general? Well, it just makes sense. Besides polluting less, resources like ethanol, wind and the sun are virtually endless – in other words – renewable. The sun will always shine, the corn will always grow, and in Central Illinois, the wind will always blow.

Well I want to introduce you to a source of renewable energy for your jobs as Illinois Library staff – it’s called WebJunction Illinois. Sponsored by the Illinois State Library, Illinois regional library systems, and other Illinois library organizations, WebJunction Illinois is a new web site that’s intended to be a resource for library staff in all types of libraries.

You’ll find information and ideas for patron services, library management and grants, opportunities to network, free courses and training, and best of all – the energy to continue providing quality library services. And the good news is it’s renewable energy – powered by the virtually endless experience and expertise of the Illinois Library Community.

We’ll talk more about this in future episodes of Live from WJ-IL, but for now, this is Lisa Barnhart signing off – Live from WJ-IL. And remember E might equal MC squared for Einstein, but E also equals WJ-IL for Illinois Library staff.