Helpful tools for libraries

As a library employee, do you ask yourself these types of questions:

“I wonder what website development software other libraries are using?”

Or…

“I know I heard about a new tool for tracking reading logs – what was the name of it?”

Or…

“What are some platforms for e-books, e-magazines and digital videos?”

We all know that in this ever-changing technological world, it is hard to keep up. Especially, if you have a zillion things on your to do list. And you might hit a brick wall when doing a Google search for library-related tools.

I was having a hard time keeping up with of all of the new techy tools. I had an idea brewing in my head – kind of a one stop shop for a list of techy tools. So when the world stopped meeting in person back in 2020, I had some extra time to put my idea into practice.

In August of 2020, I started the Helpful Tools for Libraries webpage on the Indiana State Library’s Continuing Education page.

This is a list of tools that might be helpful to your library. I wanted to curate a list in one place of these tools. It has since broadened to include things like a link to library internships, library security videos and much more. These tools aren’t endorsed by the Indiana State Library and there are certainly other tools out there that I don’t know about. Some of the tools are free and some have a cost. But, they are used by many libraries in Indiana.

This list is not meant to take the place of the library Listservs. Those are invaluable to being able to ask questions in real time and to collaborate with other library staff.

If you know of a tool that you have found to be useful in your library job, just let me know and I might add it to this list. I can be reached via email.

Enjoy the tools!

This post was written by Northeast regional coordinator Paula Newcom of the Indiana State Library Professional Development Office.

R.I.P. VHS

Most sources say VHS magnetic tape has a life-span of about 30 years. For many tapes in our collection their 30th birthday has come and gone. The degradation is evident. The sound goes tinny, the image begins to streak and rattle across the screen. Have no fear, we are currently in the process of migrating our VHS to DVD and digital format.

Until now, I had hardly browsed our VHS collection, but this project has given us a chance to view some real gems. VHS was the main form of commercial video for about 20 years in the ’80s and ’90s, so this collection falls heavily within those decades. We have VHS tapes of A&E Biographies of famous Hoosiers. Many contain original local programming. Do any of these programs jog your memory: “Hoosier History” with Rick Maultra on TV-16, “Across Indiana” on WFYI or “Our Hoosier Heritage” on WFBM?

Some of the VHS is footage originally transferred from 16mm film. It was converted to VHS to preserve the film and make it accessible. From the VHS we will make DVDs. We have a couple of these on the State Library’s YouTube channel.

YouTube and Archive.org have a lot of neat historical films available:

  • Bernie Sanders’ film about the Socialist-party leader from Indiana, “Eugene V. Debs.” The film was made in 1979. Sanders doesn’t appear on screen, but you’ll recognize his voice as Debs.
  • “Family of Craftsmen” is a promotional company film from 1953. The film follows the Bokon family of South Bend who work at the Studebaker plant. “Family of Craftsmen” is available on Archive.org.
  • Madison, Indiana is featured as an ideal American town in the 1945 Office of War Information film, “The Town.”

Moving images capture our attention and allow us to see the past more vividly. We’ve transferred footage of the Foster P. Johnson family hamming it up for the home camera in the 1930s.

Do you have any interesting videos in your home collections? It’s time to get in touch with a professional and have them transferred!

This post was written by Indiana Collection Supervisor Monique Howell

Journey of a librarian: Library travels and retirement

My professional journey has literally been a trip from here to there in the library world. It all started when I went to library school directly from my undergrad program in 1975 -one of the best choices I ever made.

Current head shot.

What was the library world like in the late 1970s? The ’70s were information-rich with bound books full of knowledge. I learned to leverage the resources, whether it was doing reference or interlibrary loan. I started out at Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh, the granddaddy of all Carnegies, as a science librarian. It wasn’t all low tech, as there were dial-up computers. I quickly stopped searching Chemical Abstracts by hand and switched to database searching. The rapid automation of libraries for information searching led to significant advancement of library operations.

From Pittsburgh I headed to Houston, where I entered the world of a corporate librarian. The company was a geotechnical engineering firm and I continued to provide science information. The continued automation of library tasks was present in this new position. A colleague and I were tasked with re-cataloging the corporation’s entire library collection. Fortunately we didn’t have to this manually. This involved training in the Online Computer Library Center (OCLC), an online resource for cataloging books and providing interlibrary loans. This was fine training in the library world of providing access to information.

In the Alleghenies in western Pennsylvania, circa 1978.

There was a short pause in my library travels, though. I returned to Troy, Michigan and was expecting a second child. I didn’t work as a librarian at this time. I became something of a “power user” of my local Michigan public libraries, the St. Clair Shores Public Library and the Troy Public Library.

Once the children were school age we moved to Carmel, Indiana, where I worked as an instructional aide in an elementary school. Besides my hours coinciding with my children’s schedule, I increased my technology competencies with instructional software and local area network administration. This segued into my position at Indianapolis Public Library, where I provided instruction on the online catalog and Microsoft Office applications. Now I was skilled, not only in library tools like cataloging and databases, but with a background in operating systems and network administration.

My traveling was not over, because I next moved to Los Angeles, where I worked first for Burbank Public Library and then for the Los Angeles Public Library. I had returned to public libraries. Hallelujah! This is where I wanted to be, but it’s not the end of my story.

My final move was to return to Indiana to the great city of Indianapolis. Indiana – and Indianapolis in particular – has a great tradition of public libraries. I was blessed to be hired by Indiana State Library to be a public library consultant. It is the culmination of a career of public service with strong information skills. I offered the Indiana public libraries my expertise in public libraries, information and technology services.

I will retire shortly. I look back at libraries in the ’70s compared to libraries of today and I marvel at what must be in store for the future. I have never been static in the library profession and I won’t be static in retirement. I will continue my travels where destinations will be determined not by employment but the attraction of beautiful sights and public libraries.

This blog post was written by Karen Ainslie, public library consultant and state E-rate coordinator. For more information, contact the Library Development Office at (317) 232-3697 or via email.

Changes for the ISL’s tech kits!

New year, new us! The Indiana State Library has changed the checkout requirements for our circulating technology kits for the new year. Starting this month, the Maker Space and Robots Kits can now be used in patron programming! Libraries that would like to check out the Maker Space or Robot Kits just need to complete an online Moodle course before reserving the kit. This course can be taken at your own pace, is worth two TLEUs and must be completed before a scheduled kit drop-off. You can find these courses on the Professional Development Office’s Moodle page. The kits can be checked out for three weeks.

The kits have also been reorganized to reflect the following contents:

Maker Space KitLittleBits
Snap Circuits Light
Snap Circuits Sound
Makey Makey
CreoPop 3D Pen
Discover Electronics Kit
EVO VR Headset
Legos

Robot Kit #1Lego WeDo
Wonder Dash
Sphero Ollie
Sphero SPRK
Cubelets
LittleBits Arduino Kit

Robot Kit #2Two of each:
Lego Wedo
Wonder Dash
Sphero Ollie
Sphero SPRK
Cubelets

To reserve a kit, please contact your regional coordinator. Contact information can be found here.

This blog post was written by Courtney Brown, southeast regional coordinator, Indiana State Library.

Progress, nostalgia and the Hoosier farm wife

Over the course of the 20th century, innovations in technology revolutionized the lives of rural dwellers throughout the United States. Many authors documented these changes and the effects they had on rural society. Among them were Hoosier authors Gene Stratton-Porter and Rachel Peden, who wrote about their own everyday lives and experiences. Writing in Adams County, Stratton-Porter documented the natural world in novels and non-fiction alike. Her work showed the effects of the demand for increased farm acreage as woods were felled and swamps drained to create new farmland. Peden, a Monroe County resident, wrote a long-running column for the Indianapolis Star as well as several books. Writing from the mid-1940s to the mid-1970s, she captured the end of one era in rural life and the beginning of another.

Advance Rumely combine-harvester, ca. 1920; Advance Rumely trade catalog, Indiana Pamphlets Collection, Indiana Division, Indiana State Library

One of the greatest technological innovations of the twentieth century for farmers was the mechanization of farm equipment, which made field work faster and easier. With the increased productivity of the new farm equipment, farmers could work larger acreages, enabling them to realize larger harvests and thus larger incomes. They often reinvested their money in their farms, purchasing more and bigger farm equipment, adding electricity to their homes and barns and increasing the types of equipment and appliances they owned.[1] The new technology also changed the farm equipment industry, as improvements to the equipment kept the farmers coming back to buy the latest machines.

Michael O’Halloran by Gene Stratton-Porter

Despite the practicality of the farm machinery, some farm wives resented having to roll their extra income into the purchase of tractors and corn pickers while they had to do without modern appliances in their homes. Early machinery purchases accentuated the traditional gender roles, as the male head of the household often controlled the family expenditures. Stratton-Porter addressed this inequality in “Michael O’Halloran,” in which Michael explains to a farmer that:

“if there was money for a hay rake, and a manure spreader, and a wheel plow, and a disk, and a reaper, and a mower, and a corn planter, and a corn cutter, and a cider press, and a windmill, and a silo, and an automobile—you know Peter, there should have been enough for that window, and the pump inside, and a kitchen sink, and a bread-mixer, and a dish-washer; and if there wasn’t any other single thing, there ought to be some way you sell the wood, and use the money for the kind of summer stove that’s only hot under what you are cooking, and turns off the flame the minute you finish.[2]”

Although somewhat exaggerated for dramatic effect, Stratton-Porter’s statement illustrates the resentment women felt when their desires appeared to be of secondary importance within the family. Even women who understood the need for machinery thought that the emphasis farm experts placed on the need for the latest machinery was ridiculous. What farm women really wanted were electric appliances to make their housework more convenient and allow them a better standard of living. Through rural electrification projects, over 90 percent of farms in the United States had electricity by 1960, up from 10 percent in 1935.[3] Like farm women across the country, most Hoosier women got electricity during this time. For these women, finally getting what they had wanted and waited for so long was an “unbelievable dream.”[4]

Rachel Peden’s “The Hoosier Farm Wife Says” column documented rural life and entertained readers of the Indianapolis Star for nearly 30 years.

For farm wives, their new household tools brought one major advantage: less time spent on housework and more time spent on leisure. Prior to electrification, women spent much of their day preparing meals on a wood-fueled stove, doing laundry with a washboard or hand-cranked wringer washer and mending clothes by hand or with a treadle sewing machine. Their housework was labor-intensive and very hands-on. By purchasing appliances to aid them in their work, rural women bought more free time for themselves.  They could also multitask more effectively. For example, automatic washing machines allowed women to put their laundry in the machine and then go do other tasks while the clothes were washed.[5]

At first, modern conveniences were wonderful luxuries. As time progressed, however, women came to view their appliances as necessities.[6] They described their appliances as something they could not live without. Although some women felt that their appliances were making them lazy and causing them to complain about minor inconveniences, they also overlooked the fact that this process of the normalization of luxury occurred throughout the past. The wringer washer and wood stoves that twentieth century farm women abandoned were once considered great luxuries by their grandmothers and great-grandmothers, accustomed as they were to washboards and open hearths.[7]

As farming became more mechanized, specialized, and commercialized, the higher expenses required to keep up with the technology caused many farmers to give up farming and seek other employment.[8] For those who stayed, the technological changes led to less cooperation among members of rural communities as combines and store-bought food replaced shared tasks such as harvesting or butchering. As rural communities and rural work changed, rural dwellers reported a loss of the sense of community that they had shared in the past.[9]

Hoosier communities were not immune to this trend. Before mechanization, the men of the community would get together and harvest each farmer’s crops, each man bringing his own wagons, horses and hand tools, while the women gathered to prepare meals for the workers.[10] Despite having more social opportunities in the latter part of the twentieth century due to improved cars and roads and more leisure time to join clubs and other social groups, farm women still regretted the loss of the annual harvest time. Harvest lingered in women’s minds as something good that they had lost because working together built community in a way that a social club never could. When the members of a rural community engaged in a difficult, yet essential, task that no one family could accomplish by itself, the members of the community learned to rely on one another in a way developed only through hard work toward a common goal. This spirit of interdependence created community between often-isolated rural dwellers and created a web of social support and goodwill as farm families knew they could turn to their neighbors in times of trouble or hardship.

By the end of the twentieth century, many rural dwellers expressed fond feelings toward the “good old days,” particularly in reference to what they saw as a simpler rural life before machines, off-farm jobs and commercial farmers. Much of this nostalgia stemmed from their memories of the past and things they missed from their old lifestyles. Although no one missed the harder work of the past, many farm women saw the complications and losses of the modern world and wanted to return to the simpler times of their youth.[11]

This blog post is by Jamie Dunn, genealogy librarian. For more information, contact the Genealogy Division at (317) 232-3689 or send us a question through Ask-a-Librarian.

[1] Rachel Peden, “Tractor Makes Possible Luxury of Riding Horse,” Indianapolis Star, January 15, 1964, page 12.
[2] Gene Stratton-Porter, Michael O’Halloran (New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1915), 356.
[3] David B. Danbom, Born in the Country: A History of Rural America (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 222.  United States Department of Agriculture, “Rural Electrification,” United States Yearbook of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 1940.
[4] Rachel Peden, “Summer Lightning Jumps out of the Cold Storage,” Indianapolis Star, February 12, 1965, page 14.
[5] Rachel Peden, “Now Home Making Has Become a Luxury Work,” Indianapolis Star, May 13, 1953, page 14.
[6] Katherine Jellison, Entitled to Power: Farm Women and Technology, 1913-1963 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1993).  The entire book documents the shift in perspective from luxury to necessity.
[7] Rachel Peden, “Man’s History Written in Tools of Yesteryear,” Indianapolis Star, January 6, 1964, page 14.
[8] Rachel Peden, “Progress Arrives as Farmers Depart,” Indianapolis Star, February 22, 1961, page 14.
[9] Mary Neth, Preserving the Family Farm: Women, Community, and the Foundations of Agribusiness in the Midwest, 1900-1940 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1995), 181.
[10] Rachel Peden, “Silo Filling Day is Red Letter Occasion,” Indianapolis Star, September 30, 1947, page 14.
[11] Rachel Peden, “Too Much Efficiency is Mighty Depressing,” Indianapolis Star, August 18, 1958, page 12.

Virtual reality (augmented reality): The next step in information evolution

From oral traditions to pictographs to manuscripts to mass production printing, humans have always looked for the best way to share stories with the most number of people in the most effective way. We have adapted to use different media to tell our stories and virtual reality and augmented reality are the next media platforms.

Libraries have long been a place to try out new technologies before they become household items. Remember when Bill Gates gave us all those PCs?

Immersive experiences can provide safe training spaces (imagine performing surgery without having to risk a patient), increase empathy (imagine literally viewing the world through the eyes of a person who is homeless) and let one travel without limits (imagine taking a field trip to the moon—walking in Neil Armstrong’s footsteps).

The HTC Vive is one of the first commercially available VR headsets and one of the most high-end platforms available. Because it’s more than just a headset, users experience more immersive activities because the handheld controllers are tracked as well as the head.

The following programs help to get a feel for what VR can be:

  • Tilt brush – 3-D art you can create and interact with
  • Google Earth – visit anywhere the Google cameras have been
  • The Body VR – learn about biological systems as if you were in the Fantastic Voyage
  • SoundStage – virtual sound equipment to create music

As patrons start to see VR depicted in more areas of life (“Ready Player One” hits theaters in March 2018), providing the unique experience of actually being a participant in VR will be an exciting opportunity for Hoosiers in every community.

The HTC Vive Virtual Reality Kit is available for check out by libraries eligible for Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants through the Indiana State Library (ISL), including school and academic libraries, as well as any public library that meets standards. The kit is available for a loan period of three months and will be delivered and set up by ISL staff who can train up to six staff members at the time of delivery. Libraries can return the kit to ISL after use or schedule a time for an ISL staff person to pick it up. The kit cannot be shipped through InfoExpress. Libraries are encouraged to develop programming around the kit to share with patrons. The HTC Vive Virtual Reality Kit can be scheduled by contacting your regional coordinator.

HTC Vive Virtual Reality Kit components:

  • 1 set of HTC Vive Virtual Reality equipment (including head set, 2 hand controllers, 2 light houses, and cables)
  • 2 tripods for the lighthouses
  • 1 computer (not wireless compatible)
  • 1 keyboard
  • 1 mouse

Funding for this project is from the Institute of Museum and Library Service under the provisions of the LSTA.

VR in libraries:
Public Libraries Online  – provides programming ideas
California’s Virtual Reality Experience  – installed VR systems in over half of the public library jurisdictions in underserved communities
Graduate Research Intern, Diana Hellyar

This blog post was written by Wendy Knapp, associate director of statewide services.