We support education

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

It's back to school time!  It will be quieter in the library during the school day now (except for storytimes).  It might be busier after school and in the evening when students with iPads and MacBooks need WiFi to do their homework.  We’ll be interested to see how that affects library traffic this fall.

 

The public library can be a resource for school in a number of ways beyond basic internet access.  Librarians still help people find information even in this era of search-it-yourself.  If you have a paper to write, whether you’re in middle school or graduate school, we can help you search for or order sources. 

One of the best sources is provided by the Minnesota state library agency.  It’s called ELM, the Electronic Library for Minnesota, and it can be accessed at elm4you.org.  You can get to it from home or we can help you with it at the library.  The website offers access to many databases of articles and encyclopedias, all high-quality, reputable sources.  If you’re in college and your professor requires it, you can limit your results to peer-reviewed journals.  Elementary school students can use the section especially for students their age that includes Britannica Learning Zone and Searchasaurus, a way to search elementary-age magazines, dictionaries, and encyclopedias.  I have used ELM countless times for my own grad school work as well as to help library patrons.  It has so much to offer.

Litchfield high school students sometimes come to us for help finding a book for a reading requirement.  We are glad to help you come up with ideas for that.  There are many options right here in our own building, plus we can order almost anything else you’d like to read.

Newsbank is a newspaper database that Litchfield Library subscribes to, primarily because it includes the Litchfield Independent Review in a searchable form.  But it also includes current event reports that could be useful to students.  This month’s include the latest articles on the Ebola outbreak, the threat of ISIS in Iraq and Syria, and the fighting in Gaza.  A social studies student may be able to use these special collections for current events homework.

If you’re getting ready to take a college entrance exam, you could check out one of our test prep guides.  We have the 2014 edition of Cracking the ACT from the Princeton Review and their 2014 edition of 11 Practice Tests for the SAT and PSAT.  We also have new test prep books coming in soon for the GRE, the LSAT, the GMAT, and the nursing school entrance exams. 

Parents looking for ideas for those lunchboxes could check out The Best Homemade Kids’ Lunches on the Planet.  This has been a popular book this summer.  The author of “100 Days of Real Food”, Lisa Leake, endorses it.  I am completely stuck in a rut for cold lunches, so I think my kids would appreciate it if I’d check it out sometime.

And for anyone interested in our educational system and teaching, we have the book Getting Schooled by Garret Keizer.  Keizer is a teacher who left the profession and then returned fourteen years later to the same school, putting him in a unique position to see what has changed in high school education in the past two decades.  Critics say his writing style is very engaging and that he has some unique insights on what should be changed in our schools. 

Supporting life-long learning is one of the purposes of the public library.  Whether you have little ones to bring to story hour so that they can start to learn pre-reading skills, students to bring in to do homework, or sources to find for your own college paper, we’re here for you.

Move into the fast lane with our new internet service

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian

It’s a happy time at the library for internet users.  We have increased our speed from 1.5 Mbps to 12.  How’s that for a jump ahead in technology? You should notice a big difference on our public computers and on your mobile devices on the wi-fi.  I know I’ve noticed it. 

Things can still get a little bit slow when our computers are full.  If you have twenty-five people online here, some of them streaming video or downloading something, 12 Mbps still can get a bit stretched.  But despite a few traffic jams,  it’s like driving a sports car now instead of a lawn mower.  Litchfield Library is one of the busiest in the library system for internet use, so we will all appreciate it.  Even checking out your books goes faster.

We’re so grateful that the federal e-rate program which helps public libraries offer broadband access to people throughout the country has allowed us to adjust for our demand like this.  Many of our rural residents cannot get anything faster than dial-up at home, and most websites now require so much more than that.  Even people in town who could get high-speed internet cannot always afford it, or a computer of their own. 

According to the Pew Research Center this month, 77% of Americans who use the internet but don’t have access at home say that internet access at their public library is important to them and their family. People living in lower-income households are much more likely to say that internet access at libraries is important to them. 

People use our computers to take online classes, complete job training modules, apply for jobs and unemployment, print boarding passes and event tickets, buy things online, search real estate listings… the list goes on and on.  Just think of how many things you search for online and how much you keep in touch with people through email and social media, and then imagine someone who has no way to do any of that.  Many people in that situation use the library to do it. 

With the new iPads and laptops in the district this fall, I expect that more kids will need to use our wi-fi than ever before to do their homework in the evenings and on weekends.  There’s no longer a complicated sign-in process to use our wi-fi; just choose the Litchfield Public Library network, accept the terms of service, and you’re in. There is no password.   It will time out after you’ve been on for four hours, so save your work if you’re doing a long project.  Our wi-fi works in the parking lot, so you could do some emergency homework in your minivan even when we’re closed.  The wi-fi turns on early in the morning and off late at night, well beyond our business hours.

Part of the role of the public library is to provide access to information.  In today’s world, so much of the information is online.  If you need internet access, whether on your own mobile device or our computer, you can visit the library to do that.  I hope you’ll enjoy the change in our service.  Faster is better!

The Wikipedia Blackout

Google and Wikipedia are protesting the SOPA (the Stop Online Piracy Act) and PIPA (the Protect IP Act) legislation today.  The English version of Wikipedia is on a 24-hour blackout.  Here's CNN's explanation of what these bills are and why they matter: SOPA Explained .  What do you think?

Minnesota's digital library

by Beth Cronk, Litchfield head librarian
4/20/11

People sometimes ask me if libraries are going to disappear as more and more things move to electronic, online formats.  If you come into the Litchfield Library almost any day of the week, you’ll be reassured that libraries are still community centers with plenty of bustling activity.  Neighbors of ours comment on how often our parking lot and street parking are full and what large numbers of people walk to the library any given day.

But certainly most of us do the majority of our information searching online now, instead of using books and physical copies of magazines and newspapers all the time like we used to.  Do you remember looking in periodical indexes in book form and then going to the old issues of magazines to find the information?  I don’t miss that.  But it can still be very difficult to find the information you’re looking for online, and you can find all sorts of inaccurate and unreliable information mixed into your search results.  Many things are just not available online for free; publishers are in business to make money, not to give away everything that they publish. 

One way that libraries have gotten involved in the online world as information providers is through digital libraries.  The state of Minnesota offers some wonderful digital library resources that you should try.

MnKnows, www.mnknows.org, is Minnesota’s digital library.  It offers access to information and publications, a Minnesota history collection, and live help from librarians.

The first thing you’ll notice on the MnKnows website is MnLink Gateway.  This is an online catalog for all of the libraries in the state that you can borrow from.  Please always check Pioneerland’s online catalog first, though, at iii.pioneerland.lib.mn.us, and order through that if possible.  But if you can’t get it from us, you can borrow items from libraries all over the state and have them sent to your local library

The next thing on the MnKnows site is the Electronic Library for Minnesota, or ELM.  You can find it directly at www.elm4you.org.  It’s a collection of excellent resources that are available to you at no charge.  These are not things that would be available for free on the internet otherwise.  Minitex, a program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the University of Minnesota Libraries, contracts with companies to provide these databases to Minnesota residents.  Just like a brick-and-mortar library would subscribe to the Wall Street Journal or buy a set of enclyclopedias so that you can use them, Minitex provides these reliable information sources to the public. 

ELM is useful to students, business and professional people, and anyone looking for reliable information published in journals, magazines, newspapers, scholarly e-books, and encyclopedias.  It includes several Britannica encyclopedias, the ERIC education database, the medical database Medline, and many magazine and journal databases that cover business, arts, science, and consumer information, among other subjects.  Even your elementary school student can use ELM to do homework, with a collection of resources geared to grades K-5.  Even though these resources are online, it isn’t like using Wikipedia or Yahoo Answers as a source for a paper.  These are reliable sources that are just like the print resources in a library, brought to you conveniently online for use anywhere, any time.

The next collection of resources in MnKnows is Minnesota Reflections.  This is a collection of images related to Minnesota history, including photos, documents, and maps.  If you enjoy looking through museum collections to learn about Minnesota history, you’ll enjoy browsing through this. 

If you need help from a librarian any time of day or night, even on a holiday, you can use the Ask MN service on the MnKnows website.   Instead of talking to the librarian in person or on the phone, you discuss your question by online chat, typing your conversation.  This service is provided cooperatively by librarians from all over.  I once got help from a librarian in Honolulu late at night when I was working on a college paper and the libraries here were closed. 

The last feature on the MnKnows library site is a research project calculator.  If you have a major paper to complete for a class, or even if you just want to set yourself up with a plan for writing the great American novel, you can create a schedule with deadlines for each portion of your project.

Digital libraries are the next frontier in providing library services to the public.  If you like to find information online and would like to find good, organized sources, check out MnKnows and put your state’s digital library to use.