Tag Archives: Minitex

Special, Visits

Minnesota’s Tribal Libraries: Red Lake Nation College’s Medweganoonind Library

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As you know, we are big fans of going to visit libraries! This is not our visit, but it’s so cool we wanted to share it with you. This write up is from the Minitex newsletter, by Cassy Leeport and Zachariah Miller!

An image of the main room of the Medwaganoonind Library at Red Lake Tribal College.

 

“The Medweganoonind Library, located inside Red Lake Nation College (RLNC), is the library for RLNC students and the Red Lake community as well as home to the Tribal Archives. It opened its doors on August 15, 2015 when the new college building was completed. Before this library opened, the closest public library was Bemidji Public Library, about a 45 minute drive from Red Lake.

In the past two-and-a-half years, the library has expanded its collection from about 1,500 to nearly 7,000 resources. The collection is made up of a large Native section (Fiction, Non-Fiction, Biographies, and Language materials), children’s and YA sections, General Fiction and Non-Fiction sections, and the very popular DVD and Audiobook sections.

RLNC is currently in the process of acquiring independent accreditation. Because of this, the library’s priority is to ensure that student needs come first. This has involved setting up a computer lab and Learning Center connected to the library and providing information-literacy workshops to assist students with their college-level research and writing.

The biggest challenge over the past few years has been getting the word out to community members that this library is for them! In September, 2016, the Medweganoonind Library was awarded a two-year IMLS Enhancement Grant for $140,000 to focus library efforts on community building and community engagement within the library.

The library is currently staffed by two full-time employees, Cassy Leeport, Director of Library Services & Tribal Archives, and Jen Hart, Library Technician. The library is open 44-50 hours a week, depending on the schedule, and has a monthly calendar of events including beading classes, technology workshops, LEGO Club, and story times.

The library is open once each month on a Saturday to host a free community event. Some of these events have included a Grinchmas Candy Cane Hunt, Halloween movie & crafts, paper moccasin making, Dr. Seuss’ birthday, gift making for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, and coming soon, Winter Storytelling.

Establishing a monthly calendar of library activities has really helped improve community usage of the space, and community patrons are the most frequent borrowers now! The big spike in community patrons has been very exciting for library staff. The library has added an average of six community patrons per week over the past year.

Although the library has seen steady growth and the future looks bright, we face the challenges that most tribal libraries do, such as sustainable funding. Being dependent on grant funding makes planning for the future difficult, but with the continued support of RLNC staff, students, and members of the Red Lake community, the Medweganoonind Library hopes to become a fixture of the community.”

Services

All kinds of news from Ebooks Minnesota

We are big, big fans of Ebooks Minnesota!! Surely, you are using it in your library and instructing all your members in the value available there. (We have all the info here!)

So we are collecting a few Minitex articles here, with updates to the great information available to libraries and library users. Share this widely!

  1. World languages curation available in Ebooks Minnesota
    You can now link directly to a curated collection of titles within Ebooks Minnesota through the World Languages collection.  This includes books in Ojibwe, Somali, Spanish and Karen languages.  Be sure to check it out at z.umn.edu/worldlanguages.
  2. Ojibwe language books added to Ebooks Minnesota
    “Thanks to Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia, Heid Erdrich, and Anton Treuer, Ebooks Minnesota now includes Ojibwe language books!
    Grassroots Indigenous Multimedia is a nonprofit organization founded in 2000 by Ojibwe community members Mary Hermes and Kevin Roach in hopes of revitalizing the Ojibwe language by creating and distributing high-quality language materials. They currently have several ongoing projects with the White Earth Ojibwe Tribal Education Department including the establishment of oral proficiency benchmarks, a family Ojibwe language class through ISD 196 and, with support from the Bush Foundation, they are “reaching out to and creating discussion spaces to engage White and non-native people of color in Minnesota in considering their responsibilities to the indigenous languages of this land.”
    Several of their books in the Ebooks Minnesota collection include both English and Ojibwe language copies. The books are based on Ojibwe conversational archives with elders and include gorgeous illustrations and very thoughtful stories. Heid Erdrich, author/editor Anton Treuer, and Wiigwaas Press serve urban and reservation communities of the Great Lakes – Great Plains region through publication and promotion of Native American language-centered writing.  They specialize in indigenous language literature and teaching materials. Both of these organizations offer stories that children and adults of all cultures can relate to, from dealing with everyday situations to unexpected adventures. “

  3. Ebooks Minnesota Turns Two!

    Happy Birthday to Ebooks Minnesota! We are celebrating its 2nd year this week. The collection continues to grow and currently contains approximately 5,000 titles. Since March 2017, titles in the collection have been accessed almost 57,000 times!

    The top 10 most accessed titles of this past year are:

    1. Southwest: It’s cool to learn about the United States
    2. West: It’s cool to learn about the United States
    3. Northeast: It’s cool to learn about the United States
    4. The Latehomecomer: A Hmong family memoir
    5. Sea Lamprey: Animal invaders
    6. The Oregon Trail
    7. 3D Printing
    8. Ariana Grande
    9. Taco El Gato #1
    10. I.Q.

    Have you, your patrons, or students, been using Ebooks Minnesota in class or for certain projects?  If so, drop us a line and share how this resource has been helpful in your community.  

Training

Register Today for the 2018 Minitex Interlibrary Loan Conference

Here is the registration page, with all the info you need!

REGISTER NOW. The deadline is April 20.

WHEN
8:30 a.m. – 3:30 p.m., April 25, 2018

WHERE
Continuing Education & Conference Center
University of Minnesota, Saint Paul Campus
1890 Buford Avenue
Saint Paul, MN 55108

WHY
Our keynote speaker this year is Amanda Moran, Senior Market Analyst at Outsell. Amanda’s presentation, “Navigating the Future: Exceeding Stakeholder Demands,” will identify the key marketplace trends driving today’s changing library service paradigms. Katie Birch of OCLC will provide her always-popular “OCLC Resource Sharing Update,” and the afternoon will feature four breakouts, including a session led by Ray Lockman of Hennepin County Library titled “An Introduction to Microaggressions and Microactivism.” Minitex Director Valerie Horton will close the day with her plenary presentation, “Going Together: Working in Teams.”

Please contact Becky Ringwelski at e-ring@umn.edu or Zach Miller at zmiller@umn.edu with your questions or comments.

Here is the schedule:

8:30–9:00 Registration & refreshments
9:00–9:15 Welcome & opening remarks
9:15–10:15 Keynote Presentation—Navigating the Future: Exceeding Stakeholder Demands—Amanda Moran
10:15–10:30 Break
10:30–11:30 OCLC Resource Sharing Update—Katie Birch
11:30–12:45 Lunch
12:45–1:45 Break-out sessions

  • Microagression and microactivism
  • PALS Alma update
  • MNLINK
  • Minnesota Libraries Publishing Project
1:45–2:00 Break
2:00–2:45 Going Together: Working in Teams—Valerie Horton
2:45–3:00 Wrap-up
Resources

Historical Periodicals from the American Antiquarian Society

From Minitex:

Minitex recently acquired access to a trove of historic periodicals collected by The American Antiquarian Society and made available in partnership with EBSCO. The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections include digitized images of the pages of American magazines and journals held by American Antiquarian Society, the premier library documenting the life of America’s people from the Colonial Era through the Civil War and Reconstruction. The American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collections exists as a series of five databases created from a comprehensive collection of American periodicals published between 1691 and 1876. These databases include 6,500 titles featuring more than 10 million pages of content from the seventeenth century through the late nineteenth century. The collection also contains titles in more than two dozen languages including French, German, Norwegian, Spanish, and more.

How do you access these unique primary sources? Minitex has made them available through the ELM portal at http://www.elm4you.org/. You can also add to an ELM Personalized page at http://www.elm4you.org/personalized or find a direct link for placement on library websites at http://minitex.umn.edu/Elm/Access.aspx#ebsco.

Conference

Registration open for Minitex Technical Services Symposium

NASA Engineers Conduct Low Light Test on New Technology for NASA Webb Telescope (15119297052)

Date and Location

Wednesday, December 6, 2017
Metropolitan State University
Library and Information Services
645 7th Street East
Saint Paul, MN  55106
Twitter hashtag: #techsymp17

Registration Details

Fee: $50.00 (Symposium only)
Fee: $85.00 (MarcEdit workshop only)
Fee: $125.00 (Symposium + workshop)

Schedule

Morning:

  • Keynote –  Breaking Out of the Walled Garden: Lessons Learned in Moving Library Linked Data from Research to Production (Jean Godby, OCLC Research)
  • Panel (Bobby Bothmann, Minnesota State University Mankato; Hannah Buckland, Leech Lake Tribal College; 3rd speaker TBA)
  • Lunch with colleagues

Afternoon 

  • Workshop – MarcEdit 7 Advanced Tools (Terry Reese, creator of MarcEdit, Ohio State University Libraries)

Learn More

Access the full meeting agenda and registration form here. The Minitex Technical Services Symposium is an inaugural conference that will focus on what technical services practitioners face in the near and middle future. Topics will include Linked Data, BIBFRAME, and local practices happening right now in a library near you.

We look forward to seeing you there!