Happy New Year! I hope your Holidays were family-filled and safe!
Welcome back to the Library! Clive Cussler is our Author of the month - if you haven't read Clive Cussler's books they are filled with action and adventure as well as intrigue and great twists and turns. The other thing Cussler is great at is research. His books are so well researched that you learn so much from them - for instance he has a series featuring Isaac Bell which takes place in 1906 - he drives a steam autombile and utilizes steam engine trains and other technology of the day. It is fascinating to learn about the way these things worked!
It seems like a long way off - however we have a new round of Blind Date with a Book! This time select your book by reading the opening paragraph!
Need a snowmobile trail or recreation map, or even a map of the Native American trails in Waushara County? We have that! Just ask for a copy at the desk.
In 2021 and 2022 we have been selected for grants which were written in 2021 - here's what we are doing with those grants:
Work continues on The Memory Spot, our digital conversion and family history recording area - although it's still mostly in the planning stages - we have digitized VHS tapes for 2 patrons. We're working with WiLS (who provided a grant to help us purchase what we need to get this area ready to go! Remember - everyone's family history is important
We are excited and very grateful to have received a Wisconsin Humanities Recovery Grant. Our project, “Remember Me - Local Histories Online,” supports Wisconsin Humanities' mission to strengthen the roots of community life through educational and cultural programs that inspire civic participation and individual imagination. We will be digitizing our historical collection of family histories, scrapbooks and other ephemera that is starting to show it's age. These materials are of great local interest, and need to be saved. Once digitized, they will be available through our website thanks to a new server at Winnefox. We have already digitized and made available the cassette recordings of families that were done in the 1970's. You can find them under the tab "Local History Audio." THis grant covers a little over half of the project, so we are working on gtrants and donations to pay for the rest. (ther is another donor opportunity at the end of this blog!)
We are so thrilled to be selected for the Children’s Book Grant from the Pilcrow Foundation! This grant will allow us to add many, many quality children’s books to our collection! Thanks to The Friends of The Patterson Mmemorial Library agreed to fund the $400 needed for the 2-1 matching funds grant - so we are able to select $1200 worth of books from picture books to middle grade. These books are being selected now and will be in our collection this spring!
Winnefox, our library system, working with three other systems was able to secure an ARPA grant for 69 libraries - each library allowed to spend $3000 on selected items. We selected new chairs for the reading room, and a Meeting Owl, which can be checked out by local organizations who wish to use it for distance meetings. The Meeting Owl shows a 360 degree view of the participants and will also show a single image of the person speaking. The sound is excellent and the vidio is good.
Our budget does not cover all the things we'd like to do - we would like to purchase a Scan EZ system, which can correct old photographs, straighten crooked documents, translate 25 different foreign languages to english, and digitize new items we receive for the collection or others would need digitized (for example the WIld ROse Historical Society). THis is a system that comes with a cost of over $5000, but is well worth the money in terms of it's capabilities.
If you are interested in donating tow our projects, pleas speak to me, Kent Barnard, Director. We want to keep the history of WIld Rose alive! We are the heart of our community!