Bulebosh WAPL Presentation, May 2008

Big Streets in a Little City Kiel Public Library’s LSTA digitization project January – December 2007

Actually, our project began much earlier than 2007 It’s nice when a comprehensive & well organized local history collection drops in your lap

Meet Ed Majkrzak, author, former library trustee, and historian extraordinaire

KPL’s Edwin J. Majkrzak Historical Research Center Dedicated April 2006

Ed, author of History of Kiel (1992), gave to us … More than 100 carefully organized notebooks filled with original documents, vintage photos and newspaper clips His indexed local obituary collection (He adds to it several times a week) More than 100 enlarged and framed photographs. He gets the frames from St. Vincent de Paul. We rotate the photos every few weeks

We nominated Ed for a WLA Citation of Merit Award … … which he won in November, 2005

Ed’s WLA write-up 2005 Citation of Merit Award Winner Kiel historian Edwin Majkrzak has been described as the pilot light of the Kiel Public Library. An active and committed library trustee until his retirement in mid 2004, Majkrzak has spent decades volunteering his time, his expertise in local and regional history, his knowledge of appropriate archival procedures, and his prescient understanding of the importance of document preservation to assist KPL in safe-guarding local history. Library Director Nanette Bulebosh said of Mr. Majkrzak, "Because of all his work, undertaken at his own initiative and diligently maintained despite physical handicaps, the library is able to provide to the public this community’s remarkable story.”

April 2006: Formal dedication of the Edwin J. Majkrzak Historical Research Center

Our grant process Attended a “how to” digitization workshop in June 2006 (it really helped) Formed a local committee to plan our project, come up with a name (“Big Streets in a Little City”), and start drafting the grant Sought help from local historical society, newpaper editor (for access to their archives), and trustees

More on our grant process We constantly communicated our progress to the community via news releases and website postings Shared our progress with Sally Drew & other DPI staff; they were enormously helpful So were our friends at the Manitowoc-Calumet Library System. They shared their successful application templates and critiqued our application before we submitted it

Writing the grant application Allow yourself plenty of time to develop your abstract, goals, budget, timeline, and publicity LSTA committee looks carefully at the budget section Have you planned for all contingencies? What is the source of your matching funds? Be sure to include staff time (benefits and wages) DPI’s online form (which you must use) is not exactly user-friendly. Plan for things to go wrong Make sure you meet the deadline!

Then we waited … We got the good news in October in the form of a nice letter from the DPI and a comprehensive critique of the our application. They told us our strengths and weaknesses (which will be very helpful when we do this again) Letter from DPI Secretary Burmaster came a few weeks later .

All recipients attend an orientation workshop at UWDC headquarters in Madiso n

Each library is assigned a UWDC mentor Jessica (center) helped us through every step in the process.

The UWDC tour included a look at Memorial Library’s high-tech equipment. UW students do most of the scanning.

Another one of UW’s powerful scanners. We were told to label and number our items very thoroughly. They kept our items for several months . They took good care of all of it. They were very sensitive about our strong attachments to some items.

“ Big Streets ” made its debut in October 2007 We provided easy access via our website We publicized the collection in local media Asked for public’s suggestions & corrections We’re still getting them … … from all over the country and even overseas

“ Big Streets” is not only a wonderful resource for local historians, students and library staff. It has also become an important outreach venue for the Kiel Public Library. People contact us from all over the world … to comment on a photo of a relative : “That’s my Uncle Hugo!” to correct our descriptive information: “You misspelled Uncle Hugo’s name.” to ask for more information: “Do you have a copy of Uncle Hugo’s obituary?” to ask about our resources: “ What else do you have on my family?” to express interest in the library and the Kiel community: “ So, if I stopped in, could you help me with my genealogy?” This is exactly what we hoped would happen!

Henry Ammann Cigar Factory, 1910-1920

Big Streets in a Little City Downtown Street Scenes in Kiel, 1860-1980 www.kiel.lib.wi.us

Bulebosh WAPL Presentation, May 2008

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Bulebosh WAPL Presentation, May 2008