1. the minnesota digital library: expanding directions MnPALS Reference Day 3 April 2009 Keith Ewing St. Cloud State University

2. why a minnesota digital library? “Our lives teach us who we are.” --Salman Rushdie Aurora Ski Club. Photo courtesy of the Goodhue County Historical Society

3. why a minnesota digital library? Sometimes we discover everything changes… and remains the same. Undergraduates in Lawrence Hall. Photo courtesy of St. Cloud State University Archives.

4. why a minnesota digital library? “Telling local stories requires acknowledging distant forces.” --Joseph Amato Civil War veterans, St. Peter, 1920/ Photo courtesy of Nicollet County Historical Society.

5. why a minnesota digital library? “Local history serves the intelligence that frees the energy of people to work in the dimensions of the possible.” --Joseph Amato Sports drummer boy, 1920? Photo courtesy of Winona State University Archives. Diary of Ezra Fitch Peabody, 1882. Image courtesy of Hennepin County Library.

6. why a minnesota digital library? “ People of every place and time deserve a story.” --Joseph Amato Old Main library, 1897; Photo courtesy of Archives, St. Cloud State University

7. why a minnesota digital library? Every image, letter, diary, forgotten book has a story to tell. Letter from James George to his Children, 22 April 1862 Image courtesy of the Olmstead County Historical Society

8. why a minnesota digital library? Improvement of State Roads, 1919 Image courtesy of the Minnesota Department of Transportation. Geologic Atlas of Stearns County, 1995 Image courtesy of the Minnesota Geologic Survey

9. why a minnesota digital library? “Indigenous to Minnesota and almost completely ignored by its people…” --Federal Writer’s Project Chippewa children, 1905? Photo courtesy of Pennington County Historical Society.

10. why a minnesota digital library? “The last seat of power on the great continent will be … at the head of navigation on the Mississippi River.” --William H. Seward Falls of St. Anthony, from Swords and Plowshares playbill, 1918. Image courtesy of Minneapolis Public Library.

11. reflections growth 120000 100000 80000 60000 40000 20000 2001 2002 20032004 2005 20062007 2008 images visitors

12. new directions in recent projects Social Side of Reflections Minnesota Finder OCLC WorldCat & CONTENTdm Pachyderm Learning Objects Flickr Commons Steve Tagging

13. social interaction

14. wide area search

15. OCLC connections

16. learning objects Partnership with the Minnesota Learning Commons

17. flickr commons Partnership with the Jewish Historical Society of the Upper Midwest

18. steve social tagging IMLS grant project with the New Media Consortium

19. 2009 participants County Historical Societies

20. 2009 participants Museums, Libraries, Archives, State & Federal Agencies, and others

21. the project at: http://www.mndigital.org/ the collections at: http://reflections.mndigital.org/ the finder at: http://search.mndigital.org

22. sources Amato, Joseph (2002). Rethinking Home: A case for writing local history. Berkeley: University of California Press. Blegen, Theodore C. (1975). Minnesota: A history of the state. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Seward quote is from Collections of the Minnesota Historical Society, vol. 12 (1908). St. Paul: The Society. Available online: http://memory.loc.gov/cgi- bin/query/r?ammem/lhbum:@field(DOCID+@lit(lhbum0866g)):