Thursday, July 14, 2016
The Library of the Month is a celebration of Wisconsin libraries compiled by the BadgerLink team.
Rib Lake Public Library (RLPL) is a community hub, where people go to learn, access information, socialize, and have fun!
As one of the only wi-fi hotspots in Rib Lake, the wi-fi is available 24 hours a day. The library also provides 10 public access computers--which are in high demand. These services help bridge the digital divide that often occurs in small towns and rural areas.
The children’s department serves children from birth to 12th grade, including a large homeschool community where learning and literacy skills are key to the engaging and fun programming. “Story Time Adventures,” the pre-school storytime, runs every Tuesday. The little adventurers explore the deepest parts of the ocean, tour the African Serengeti on a safari, or walk on the moon --all without leaving the library! To support early literacy, the library also offers 1000 Books before Kindergarten. For (slightly) older children, the library has a registered therapy dog, Juno, who visits the library each week with her owner Kerri Olson. Reading to Juno helps children struggling with reading or speech to gain confidence by practicing in a non-judgmental environment. Children can sign up for a block of time to read to Juno and earn prizes for reaching reading goals. In June and July, the children’s department take a break from the "adventure" to switch to their summer library theme - On Your Mark, Get Set, Read!
The library also provides learning and fun activities for adults with monthly Adult Coloring Night and a writer's workshop. Their memoir writing class, taught by author Sue Roupp, has been meeting at the library for over 2 years and is almost ready to publish their first book, Two Cups of Flour. The RLPL also owns a nice selection of local and state history books, books by local authors, newspapers, and memorabilia.
A new project has been developing the library’s digital collections. Recently, RLPL had the opportunity to participate in a newspaper pilot project. Wisconsin Historical Society, Recollection Wisconsin,WPLC, and WiLS teamed up to provide digitized historic newspapers. The Rib Lake Herald, along with newspapers from 12 other communities will be added to the Wisconsin Newspaper Association’s Archive of Wisconsin Newspapers. These historic newspaper collections will soon be available through BadgerLink.
Another digital collection is the Rib Lake High School Yearbooks. The year books are available through Google Drive and were digitized through a program offered by Oklahoma Correctional Industries (OCI). The entire digitization project was free. OCI paid for shipping both ways and returned a quality digital reproduction of the yearbooks. In addition to digitized print materials, RLPL also owns a collection of oral histories from the 1980s that are in the process of being digitized. Using an inexpensive USB cassette capture device, the library is converting the recordings to MP3s that are also available on Google Drive: Historic Audio Interviews. This, however, is a very time-consuming process, as each tape needs to play through in real time. For more information about these projects, go to the Rib Lake Library website www.riblakepl.org.
Rib Lake Public Library provides resources that help their community explore the past and look to the future!