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LibraryCall - Services for Reaching Across the Digital Divide

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Tue, 07/20/2021 - 8:35am

Self-initiated project to provide services that would enable libraries to reach patrons without a broadband connection.  With libraries closed, we knew these were the people who needed our help.  From that inspiration, LibraryCall services were borne. We've created several services including:

Storytime Commons - a repository of high-quality, updated stories that we've adapted for the times. These are stories that our Dial-A-Story customers can select and schedule for their Dial-A-Story programs.  We pull stories from this collection for our Storytime Direct service.  Stories from the Storytime Commons are also available through Hoopla (see https://www.hoopladigital.com/artist/14735027315 for some examples) and Overdrive/Libby (search "Storytime Commons").

Dial-A-Story Studio - a service that enables libraries to implement their own Dial-A-Story service.  They can use our Storytime Direct stories and may upload their own.  Libraries set their own schedules, have as many phone numbers as they like, track their stats, and use our widgets so that the service is available to phone-only patrons as well as online patrons.

Storytime Direct - a service that allows libraries to deliver a new story every week without having to do any work to make it happen.  We push a new story from our Storytime Commons collection each week.  Libraries may have an English line or both an English and Spanish line.  We set you up with the phone numbers, widgets for online users to enjoy the stories, and all the library needs to do is let people know about the service.  Couldn't be easier or more affordable to reach across the digitial divide.

Resource Hotline - tools to deliver timely information to people by phone.  Our interface makes it easy for libraries to change the content that gets delivered, and track how callers use the service. Callers can leave messages, be routed to another number (e.g. another community resource) or listen to recordings prepared by staff.

Storytime Anytime App - this product is currently under development.  It is a web-based app that will enable libraries to provide a dedicated children's audiobook app that provides access to all of the children's stories in our Storytime Commons for use online as well as offline.  Stories will be downloadable with no restrictions or expiration dates.  If you are interested in being a beta tester, please contact us at team@librarycall.com.

More information about the services (and others we have in the works) at LibraryCall.com.

"Faith in the City" Digital Mapping Project

Submitted by admin on Wed, 03/27/2019 - 11:05pm

"Faith in the City: Chicago's Religious Diversity in the Era of the World's Fair" [Note: the exhibit is currently offline while The Newberry re-organizes their digital exhibits.] is a digital humanities project focused on religious movements and figures in Chicago in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.  The project, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Newberry Library, displays hundreds of historical points as well as essays from over a dozen prominent scholars related to the theme.  The map technology allows visitors to toggle between a custom-generated modern map layer of Chicago and a georeferenced panoramic map from the 1890s, seeing how neighborhoods and the city itself have changed in the past 120 years.

Website Development - Atlas of Historical County Borders

Submitted by admin on Wed, 03/27/2019 - 3:51pm

Historians and genealogists searching for historical records can often be challenged by geographical changes over time.  As county and state borders have shifted throughout US history, locating physical records can be tricky.  Over ten years ago, The Newberry Library created a digital atlas of every historical county, state, and territorial boundary in US history, dating to the first colonies.  The data was served via an Esri ArcGIS viewer application which made it difficult for non-geographers to use effectively and required expensive in-house server resources.

"The Opportunity Project" - Free Toolkit and Examples For Community Digital Projects!

Submitted by Jim Craner on Thu, 02/28/2019 - 2:24pm

Are you going to build a community digital project, like a new online app or map for your city or region?  Make sure to check out the project toolkit from the US Census Bureau's "The Opportunity Project" for some great tips and resources!  The toolkit includes helpful explanations of the chief steps of planning, building, and supporting a digital product or service - and since it's provided by the Census Bureau, there are tons of links to data sources from federal, state, and local sources.

Digital Librarian Learning Circles

A Digital Librarian Learning Cohort is a group of librarians from across the country working on their own individual technology projects while simultaneously attending regularly-scheduled webinars that help build common digital skills.  Each week, librarians attend a group webinar to learn basic skills, as well as participate in a private 1-hour technology mentoring session with a developer or designer familiar with their project.

Using "Arches" for mapping historical and cultural resources!

Submitted by Jim Craner on Sat, 02/02/2019 - 8:33pm

You can create simple online maps using free tools like Google's My Maps, but for serious collections of local landmarks, or historical/cultural resources, you'll need something more powerful, such as the custom platform that we built for Chicago Ancestors.  I recently came across the open source platform "Arches," popularized by a digital history project in Los Angeles, that provides powerful geodata management capabilities perfect for digital humanities projects.

 

Reaching Your Entire Community Online: Code for America's Digital Outreach Playbook

Submitted by Jim Craner on Wed, 11/28/2018 - 8:16am

As someone who has worked on community technology projects for nearly twenty years, it was always conventional wisdom that we had to reach people offline to bring them online.  In other words, we couldn't solely do outreach via the Internet when we were targeting people that were, often by definition, completely offline.  As librarians in an increasingly digital world approaching 2020, it can be frustrating to see low uptake of digital services or low participation rates in online programs, like summer reading. When studies show that Americans of all ages and economic groups go online in increasing numbers, why is the online use rate of our digital services not skyrocketing?

Protecting Patron Privacy: A Data Perspective

Submitted by Jim Craner on Fri, 08/17/2018 - 7:03pm

Remember earlier this summer when your email inbox and the headers of your favorite websites were chock full of notices about "Updated Privacy Policies?"  You may also remember that this flurry of privacy policy updates was due to a new European Union law going into effect that controlled how companies could collect data about European citizens.  Since many Internet services are global by nature, some Americans also benefit from these new data policies, although American companies serving American citizens obviously don't need to abide by the EU regulations.

Is your library website accessible to all?

Submitted by Jim Craner on Tue, 08/14/2018 - 1:57pm

As a librarian, you naturally want to ensure that your library is accessible to patrons of all ages and abilities?  We build ramps and elevators for people who use wheelchairs, scooters, and other mobility assistants to make sure they have access to every resource in our library.

Are you taking the same care to make sure that all of your patrons can access the resources on your website?

Bookpoints - Library Summer Reading Program

Submitted by Lori Ayre on Mon, 07/02/2018 - 12:03pm

BookPoints is a free, open source online application that libraries can use to build custom summer reading websites. The software was originally developed with the California Library Association (CLA) and Library of Virginia with support from IMLS via LSTA grants.  After the grant period ended, The Galecia Group continued to develop the software and provided hosting and support for libraries interested in getting help using the free, open source software. Bookpoints was supported through summer reading season in 2023.  As of 2024, The Galecia Group will support a different summer reading solution called EasySRP. See https://easysrp.com/ for more information.