SNAPSHOT: a day in the life of the Washington State Library
Today is Washington Library Snapshot Day! Hundreds of libraries throughout Washington State are collecting photos, stories and statistics, offering a glimpse into a single day in the life of their organization.
Are you a customer of the Washington State Library or one of its branches? Are you a Washington library worker who has been served by one of the State Library’s programs?
Tell us what the Washington State Library means to you by sharing a comment on this blog post or on our Facebook wall!
In the meantime, here’s our first snapshot of the day–Digital Collections librarian Laura Robinson working with volunteer Gordon Russ. Gordon has been volunteering with the State Library for approximately 5 years, doing everything from processing vertical files to moving library materials to acid free storage. Here he is working on our historic newspaper indexing project.
4 thoughts on “SNAPSHOT: a day in the life of the Washington State Library”
The vintage photographs, the old memoirs in the phrasing of another era, the early maps of our island, and the memorabilia that document our first college and our First People have been widely accessible for the first time in Vashon Library and the Vashon Heritage Museum thanks to the Washington Rural Heritage Project. We thank the Washington State Library every time we log on to show people this wonderful collection.
This project is a magnificent digital public works of Washington State culture, a tremendous monument to Northwest history and the lives of its common people. We are happy and proud to have received the support and assistance of the WSL team to create our local Vashon Rural Heritage collection.
Because our community had no repository for local history, whenever residents and students would come into the library asking about local history we had little information to direct them to. We had a few fragile booklets we were hesitant to loan out because not only were they were they were old and fragile, they were our only copies.
As part of the Washington Rural Heritage website we were able to make fragile materials and seldom seem photographs, documents and paintings available to all. As a small community with little resources we would never have been able accomplish anything like this on our own. The Washington Rural Heritage Team of Evan Robb and Kirsten Furl were endlessly supportive and infinitely patient and helpful in guiding us through the process. We are so very grateful for the opportunity the Washington Rural Heritage project allowed us in the digitization of our historic materials.
Hello—-
The WSL system has been a great help to our Ag Museum here in Pomeroy searching for historical data to compliment our historical exhibits. The most recent one was in searching for information on the grain tramway systems here in Garfield County. They have also been most helpful in photographing some of our many unique exhibit items. In summary, I would hate to try and accomplish what we have without their help and the availability of their archival records.
Sincerely,
David Ruark
We couldn’t do without the fabulous folks at the State Library. They helped us save valuable, irreplaceable photos and pieces of history with the digitization grant we received. Yaay Kirsten and Evan! Carolyn Petersen did a fabulous job of shepherding and networking when eight of us from rural libraries attended the AARL/ABOS conference in Denver in October. You people are our lifeline!
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