Southeastern Libraries Cooperating Legacy Grant SFY 2014 - SFY 2015

Activity Highlights:

Regional Digitization
SELCO's regional digitization project continued a very successful partnership with the Minnesota Historical Society (MHS). As a result of a renewed contract, MHS digitized a selection of newspapers from Houston, Dodge, Winona, and Mower counties. MHS used the same exacting standards and protocols that were used to digitize previous SELCO newspapers, as well as those titles included in the Library of Congress website Chronicling America as part of the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). This selection of SELCO digitized newspapers was based on the investigation and research undertaken during FY2010 by SELCO's Legacy Digitization Committee. During FY2014, approximately 55,200 pages were digitized. During FY2014, the Minnesota Digital Newspaper Hub went live. As a central repository and resource for digitized Minnesota newspapers, the Hub makes historic newspapers freely accessible over the Internet and provides greatly improved access through keyword searching of the page content. The SELCO newspapers are a key component with over 300,000 total pages offered through the new Hub.

Community Reads
A new program for SELCO, born out of an expressed interest to dedicate grants to community reads project, SELCO completed their first year with three libraries pursuing the program in their area. The Van Horn Public Library in Pine Island worked to expand local knowledge focusing their program on the memoir Patty's Journey by Donna Scott Norling. Providing books, a book discussion evening, a panel of speakers on the topic of the current foster care and adoption process, a film screening, as well as a field trip to the local Minnesota State Public School Museum, Van Horn Public Library's Community Reads program met with great success as they engaged 110 community members across their programs. The Zumbrota Public Library utilized their Community Reads grant towards their annual Zumbrota Reads program. Pulling from the classics, they selected To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. Building upon previous year's programs, they again offered a film screening and book discussion and also provided a panel presentation on Race & Racism; all three helped them to reach an audience of 164 community members. Harmony Public Library was the final location to utilize a grant for their Community Reads program. Seeking to encourage others to read local Minnesota authors, the library selected Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger. Because his books are so heavily circulated, the library brought the author to the area to talk about his writing techniques and provide a Q&A about his books. The visit gathered 40 community members.

Community Collaboration Project: Laird's Library Legacy
Winona Public Library hired historian Greg Gaut, Ph.D., J.D. to research the history of the Winona Public Library and to prepare a manuscript telling this story. The manuscript provided the basis for public events at the museum of the Winona County Historical Society (WCHS), at the Winona Public Library (WPL), and a presentation to the Winona City Council.

Winona had a library as early as 1857, but it did not become a public institution until the Winona Free Public Library organized in 1886. It occupied and quickly outgrew a wood frame building in downtown Winona. In 1897, William Harris Laird, one of the three founders of the Laird, Norton Company, one of the great lumber firms which dominated Winona's riverfront, offered to build a new library for the city. He also arranged for his nephew Warren Powers Laird, who led the architecture school at the University of Pennsylvania, to design the building in the then popular neo-classical style. His gift to the city, worth in the neighborhood of $5 million in today's dollars, came two years before the first Carnegie grant for a library in Minnesota.

Winona Public Library staff had discovered two rich caches of primary historic material which provided the basis for a more accurate and compelling retelling of the library's story. Library staff found unstudied historic documents and objects in the library's vault, and the historian, Dr. Gaut, found additional WPL documents in the archives of the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul. Among the items found in the WPL vault were: the official record book of the library's Board of Directors from 1886 to 1933, catalog and patron ledgers, the original architectural drawings, and a collection of correspondence between Laird, the board, the city council, and the architects. The archives of the Minnesota Historical Society in St. Paul hold the Laird Norton Company papers which contain a full box of correspondence about the library. These letters document how Laird and his collaborators developed the idea for the new library in the two years before he announced his gift, and provide more sourcematerial than is usually the case with a 19th century building.
At the WPL event, Greg Gaut presented about the history he had discovered during his research with the help of a Winona community actor, Ray Felton. Posing as William Harris Laird, Felton reenacted scenes from history, drawing the audience into the presentation. The event, which drew a substantial audience, also included appetizers, lively discussions, and tours of the library. The evening culminated in the announcement that Dr. Gaut's manuscript will be published, preserving the history of Winona Public Library for the next 100 years.

Once Upon a Reader: MOO! Trunk Shows
As part of the statewide Once Upon a Reader initiative from CRPLSA (Council of Regional Public Library System Administrators), each of the state's 12 library region received one trunk show.

SELCO expanded this and provided one trunk show for each of the counties in the SELCO region. Between May and September 2015, SELCO region libraries hosted a dozen trunk shows. Author David LaRochelle, illustrator Mike Wohnoutka and Cow, the star of their book Moo!, visited one location in each of the 11 counties and a second location in Olmsted county.

The 45-minute show had children, parents and caregivers reading, dancing, and even brainstorming ideas for illustrations that Mike did on-the-spot and donated to each host location. CRPLSA covered the cost of donating a book to every Head Start student in the state. SELCO provided additional copies of the book that were distributed to regional daycare providers and regional libraries - a total of 2,375 copies.

SELCO staff put just over 600 miles on the road to the trunk shows, which were attended by more than 1,800 people.