Tag Archives: Indiana State Library

Indiana Young Readers Center Coming in 2016

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The Indiana State Library will be opening a Young Readers Center in 2016! The idea was inspired by the Young Readers Center at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The Indiana Young Readers Center will be a place for kids to learn about the talented authors and illustrators from Indiana and about our great state itself.

The first step in creating this space was building a collection. The Indiana Young Readers Center collection includes materials written or illustrated by Indiana authors and books about Indiana for kids and teens. A portion of this collection is already circulating and available to check out. The Center also houses special, non-circulating collections of autographed books by Indiana authors and illustrators and Indiana state book award winners for children and teens.

The Indiana Young Readers Collection includes books by Hoosier authors Jim Davis, John Green, Meg Cabot, Norman Bridwell, and many more!

The Indiana Young Readers Collection includes books by Hoosier authors Jim Davis, John Green, Meg Cabot, Norman Bridwell, and many more!

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The Hidden History of the Indiana State Library

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Giving tours of the Indiana State Library building and highlighting its architectural details keeps the staff connected with both the library’s history and our state’s history. Before the current 1934 building existed for the Indiana State Library, the library was housed within the “new” Indiana State House, occupying four rooms in the third floor south wing from 1888 to 1933. Those rooms are presently offices for the Legislative Services Agency and Indiana House of Representatives.  If you are an architecture aficionado, do not pass up the opportunity offered by the Statehouse Tour Office to tour Indiana’s beautiful 1888 State House. Continue reading →

Best Books of the Year – Borrow them at the Indiana State Library

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Come explore the Talking Book and Braille Library’s large print browsing collection at the Indiana State Library. Located on the second floor between the manuscript reading room and the Indiana Young Readers Center, books from the browsing collection can be checked out from anyone with an Indiana State Library card.

Some of the best and most popular books of the year can be found in this collection, including:

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania
Erik Larsondead wake
On May 1‚ 1915‚ a luxury ocean liner as richly appointed as an English country house sailed out of New York‚ bound for Liverpool‚ carrying a record number of children and infants. The Lusitania was one of the era’s great transatlantic “Greyhounds” and her captain‚ William Thomas Turner‚ placed tremendous faith in the gentlemanly strictures of warfare that for a century had kept civilian ships safe from attack. He knew‚ moreover‚ that his ship — the fastest then in service — could outrun any threat. But as the Lusitania made its way toward Liverpool‚ an array of forces both grand and achingly small — hubris‚ a chance fog‚ a closely guarded secret‚ and more — all converged to produce one of the great disasters of history. Continue reading →

Innovative Lego program at MPL

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SnipImageTylanna Jones is the Head of Youth Services at the Marion Public Library. The library has been running a fabulous Lego program for the past few years.

PAULA: Can you give some background on how the program was created?

TYLANNA: We saw that other libraries were hosting Lego programs and we thought that our community would really enjoy a Lego program. Our director put a request in the newspaper for donations of Legos. One person donated 99 percent of the Legos so we were very fortunate to receive this gift. They donated over a dozen extra large totes of Lego pieces! Continue reading →

Hartford City Public Library’s New Director Michele Ogle

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Northeast Regional Coordinator Paula Newcom, and I recently visited the Hartford City Public Library and met the new director, Michele Ogle. Michele gave a tour of the building, a Carnegie library that has been remodeled and modernized. Patrons in the library were engaged in genealogy research while others browsed the book resources.

Michele Ogle_editI asked Michele about her journey to her present position. It is a return to her roots having grown up in Montpelier, Indiana. As a child she regularly visited the Montpelier-Harrison Township Public Library and as a teenager worked as a circulation clerk at the library. She also worked there in the summers between college terms, before deciding to pursue her Masters in Library Science.

Michele is excited about serving the population where she grew up. She finds it difficult to pick one favorite book but is partial to the Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series. Meeting non-famous people in history interests her, learning about how they lived and trials they faced. Other interests are playing videogames, gardening, all sorts of creative hobbies, and spending time with pets and her family.

This blog post was written by Karen Ainslie, Library Development Librarian and Professional Development Office Librarian. For more information, contact the Library Development Office at (317) 232-3697 or email statewideservices@library.in.gov.

Interview with Northeast Regional Coordinator Paula Newcom

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Northeast Regional Coordinator Paula Newcom and I recently sat down and had a conversation about her first year working for the State Library. She and I have something in common – we both started working for the State Library last November. The following is an excerpt from our conversation.Paula Newcom 1

RB: It has been almost a year now that you have been working for the Indiana State Library. Tell me about how the year has gone and what the biggest differences are between your current job and what you did as a librarian in the public libraries…

PN: I think that the last year has been very good! I’ve had a lot of new challenges and have learned a lot, but I enjoy the freedom of being able to work at home as well as travel to my different libraries and often drive to the Indiana State Library in Indianapolis to attend meetings.

I have 60 libraries in my region – the Northeast region – and I think I have gone to almost half of them since I have been hired. I have been very blown-away by what I have seen with the different libraries in my area from the smallest to the biggest. They all seem to be doing something unique in each place. And a lot of libraries have had building/renovating projects which has pleasantly surprised me.

RB: Could you give me an example of that? Continue reading →

Recovering the Classics: Give a fabulous makeover to a literary masterpiece

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Recovering the Classics is a collaborative program between the White House, the New York Public Library and the Digital Public Library of America. Its goal? To allow artists,rtc_A+Tale+of+Two+Cities_Alexis+Lampley graphic designers and anyone else who is interested a chance to design a cover for a classic work of literature which is currently in the public domain. All designs are sold as prints, apparel or other items with proceeds going to the artists.

Of further interest to libraries is a chance to exhibit 50 book covers as part of the program’s 50×50 campaign which seeks to “showcase 50 classic book covers in all 50 states, and nurture communities of book-lovers in the process.”

If you are interested in contributing or if you would like to host an exhibit, more information can be found at http://www.recoveringtheclassics.com/.

This blog post was written by Jocelyn Lewis, Catalogue Librarian, Indiana State Library. For more information, contact the Indiana State Library at (317)232-3678 or “Ask-A-Librarian” at http://www.in.gov/library/ask.htm.

Interview with April A. Bonomo, Librarian at Rockville Correctional Facility

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Are you from the area?  If not, where are you from originally?

I’ve lived in Rockville since 1976, however I am originally from beautiful Brown County. As I like to say, specifically, the suburbs of Gnaw Bone.20150701_133240_resized (2)

What inspired you to work in libraries?

Between the order of a library and the multisensory experience books bring, a library is a very peaceful environment to me. When I learned of the available position at Rockville Correctional Facility (RCF) I knew that is where I wanted to be. Even though I had no previous experience in corrections, I knew I had found my vocational home. The ease of becoming acclimated to the position and the continued enthusiasm for it confirms my initial notion.

What is your favorite thing about working for your library? Continue reading →

Frighteningly Delightful: Atlases from the United States Exploring Expedition

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Several large-format atlases are currently waiting in the Martha E. Wright Conservation Lab for their custom-made boxes to be made. Within these atlases are hundreds of beautifully hand-painted engravings of specimens observed by the scientists aboard the naval fleet charged with surveying the Pacific Ocean on the United States Exploring Expedition. This expedition, often called the “U.S. Ex. Ex.”, sought to document everything from the charting of lands and oceans, the description and illustration of flora and fauna, and the anthropological study of peoples encountered on the journey. To read more about this highly influential expedition, we recommend giving this Smithsonian article a read.

As October is the spookiest month of all, we thought we would share some of the more “frightening” animals depicted by John Cassin, an American Ornithologist, in the United States Exploring Expedition’s  Atlas. Mammalogy and Ornithology, 1858.

Ornithology, Plate 5: Corvus ruficollis (Brown-necked raven). – The blacks used on the feathers reflect light when viewing the plate from different angles. This is a wonderful example of how important it can be to see a real item in person for the full experience.

Ornithology, Plate 5: Corvus ruficollis (Brown-necked raven). – The blacks used on the feathers reflect light when viewing the plate from different angles. This is a wonderful example of how important it can be to see a real item in person for the full experience.

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The Debt Tsunami is coming!

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It’s only October and already there are signs of the upcoming holidays showing up in the stores. Yes, that’s right the holidays are coming. The lights, the ornaments, the PRESENTS! It’s starting out as a trickle, but soon it will be coming at us as one big glittery shining tsunami of mass consumerism that sweeps so many of us up in an incredible euphoria of shopping. Family members come to us with lists in their hands and looks of happy anticipation on their faces and we go out and buy those items, because we don’t want to disappoint them. And all the while our credit cards are so often already being haunted by the ghosts of holidays past. We are in debt up to our eyeballs and this has become so …. Normal. Continue reading →