Enhancing the Digital Footprints of Library Local History/Genealogy Departments

At one time, public libraries determined their overall effectiveness in serving the public based upon door count, i.e., the number of persons entering the building.  With the advent of online history and genealogical resources, increasing numbers of people are using the Internet (rather than visiting their local libraries) to conduct their genealogical research or to learn about their communities' histories.

How, then, does a library reach patrons who don't physically visit the facility?  Many libraries have found social media as their new pathway to patrons.  Videos, podcasts, blogs, and posts to such social media sites as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and others have become effective mechanisms to reach a new, different audience than those coming through the library doors.

These two slideshows, along with a handout (links below), summarize some of the resources available for history/genealogy librarians to use in creating a digital footprint.

• Short Slideshow
• Long Slideshow
• Handout

Mooresville (Indiana) Public Library has several videos on YouTube to illustrate how local history may be brought alive visually.  Watch this playlist to learn more.

 

Indiana Room at Mooresville (Indiana) Public Library 

(MPL Website's Digital Indiana Room Available Here)

 

Spooky Hoosier Books, Part BOO --er-- Two

We continue with our recommendations for ghostly tales from Hoosierland.  (See our previous post, too.)

Hoosier folklorist Tom Baker has published several haunted books, including the ever-popular Indiana Ghost Folklore (Arglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing, 2009).  Baker includes stories from across the state, and besides ghosts and haunted placed, he includes werewolves and other monsters, lucid dreams, spirit possession, witches, and other supernatural offerings.  This is folklore, so the cases aren't presented as factual events; rather, they are legends that have grown over time in particular places or surrounding specific circumstances.  Did they actually happen?  That's beside the point.  In folklore, the legend is everything.  Baker deftly delivers riveting yarns that will fascinate readers.  Check it out from an Evergreen Indiana (E.I.) library near you (if you're a cardholder, that is).

 

When I was a student at Indiana University, its folklore department was recognized as the best in the world, or so I was informed by a folklore major who had travelled from Israel to study there.  I had (and have) no reason to doubt the academic strength of the I.U. folklore department, as I discovered first-hand when I read Linda Dégh's classic treatise, Indiana Folklore:  A Reader (Bloomington, IN:  Indiana University Press, 1980), available to checkout from Evergreen Indiana.  It is a scholastic masterpiece.  The book includes a superb cross-section of Hoosier folklore, but for our purposes, its accounts of magic, horror, ghosts, and haunted places make this an essential read for anyone interested in the supernatural.  After reading it, I regretted not having taken any undergraduate folklore courses at I.U.  I even reflected that it would have been a more interesting major for me than the one in which I earned my bachelor degree (I won't tell tales out-of-school, so to speak, which means I won't divulge what my major was.  Anyway, I'm old now, and it's possible I've forgotten.  Since my B.A., or, as I.U. shows it, my A.B., theoretically helped me gain admission to a top I.U. graduate program, from which I earned a doctorate, I don't have too many regrets.)

 

 

Speaking of Indiana University (Bloomington), Kat Klockow compiled a collection of ghost stories from Monroe County (and elsewhere in Indiana) that focuses upon I.U.  Like most good folklore, the tales include horror (the "McNutt hatchet man," for instance) as well as more traditional supernatural activities, ghosts, or haunted places.  A few of these I had heard as a student over forty years ago, but most were new to me.  They'll raise the hair on your neck, I'll wager.  Evergreen Indiana cardholders can checkout a copy.

Mark Marimen is a prolific writer of Hoosier hauntings, and his books explore the gamut of Indiana-related supernatural stories.  They remain some of the most popular books on the subject at Mooresville Public Library.  If you're an Evergreen Indiana cardholder, you'll have a field day checking them out and reading them.

 

Nicole R. Kobrowski has written several haunted Indiana books, of which her Encyclopedia of Haunted Indiana (Westfield, Indiana : Unseenpress, 1st edition, 2008--see also the updated 2017 edition) gathers statewide stories of the macabre, organized by location.   See the Evergreen Indiana catalog for a listing of Kobrowski's titles available to checkout.

 

Another popular author of Indiana hauntings is Wanda Lou Willis, whose Haunted Hoosier Trails (Cincinnati, Ohio : Clerisy Press, 2002) and More Haunted Hoosier Trails (Cincinnati, Ohio : Emmis Books, 2004) are perennial favorites for ghost aficionados.  Find these titles here in Evergreen Indiana.

Edrick Thay's Ghost Stories of Indiana (Edmonton, AB, Canada : Ghost House Books, 2001) includes a wide range of haunted places (houses, public places, universities, historical landmarks, bridges and tunnels, cemeteries, and legendary ghouls).  Evergreen Indiana cardholders can check it out here.

Tom Baker and Jonathan Tichenal teamed-up to present hauntings from Indianapolis (and other Hoosier locales) in another excellent survey of the supernatural.  E. I. Cardholders can  check it out.

I was born and raised in Lafayette, Indiana, but I hadn't heard of most of these haunted tales compiled by Dorothy Salvo Davis and W. C. Madden in Haunted Lafayette (Charleston, SC : Haunted America, 2009).  Recognizing the locations helped bring to life the scary stories from Tippecanoe County (and nearby).  Find it here in E.I.

 

 

  

S. E. Schlosser retells several supernatural stories in Spooky Indiana (Guilford, CT : Globe Pequot Press, 2012).  Schlosser garnishes these folklore favorites with some spine-tingling spice.  Find it here in E.I.

 

 

K. T. MacRorie's Hoosier Hauntings (Grand Rapids, MI : Thunder Bay Press, 1997) is an earlier compilation of supernatural and paranormal tales that will send shivers down readers' backs.  It's here in E.I.

 

There are many, many more spooky Indiana books out there, but these will get you started.  Others are easily found in your libraries' catalogs or local (or online) booksellers.  Let's end on a terrible pun:  Put the BOO in books this Halloween season.  There's nothing quite as invigorating as a good ghost story, especially when so many may be found in your own state.

 

Libraries Lead !

The theme to this year's National Library Week is "Libraries Lead!"  Our promo trailer "teaser" elaborates.

Click (Above) to Play Video

For further details about what we're planning for National Library Week, please visit our feline roving reporter's blog.

How Will We Transform You?

This week (April 9-15, 2017) is National Library Week.  The theme is Libraries Transform.  Our promo trailer elaborates.

Libraries Transform (2017 National Library Week Promo Trailer)
by Mooresville Public Library

How will we transform you, or you, us?  Find out on your next visit.  See our huge yellow transformer by our front entrance, where we have staff photos sharing what we love about our patrons.  (Click photos to enlarge.)