Minnesota Digital Library

Minnesota Reflections Collections in WorldCat

Type "Minnesota Reflections" and your institution name in the WorldCat.org search box.

In 2008, the Minnesota Digital Library began a project to add the content in Minnesota Reflections to the OCLC WorldCat database.

WorldCat is a database of more than 135 million bibliographic records used for cataloging, reference, and resource sharing in the region and throughout the world. WorldCat content is accessible through major search engines like Google and Yahoo! If a person begins a search in Google, they may be directed to the WorldCat.org website and from there can see which library or cultural heritage institution owns the item they are looking for.

By adding Minnesota Reflections content to WorldCat, institutions participating in Minnesota Reflections gain greater exposure to their digital collections.

Try searching for your collection by going to WorldCat.org, the public Web destination for finding content in the WorldCat database.

Type "Minnesota Reflections" and your institution name in the search box, or search for a known title. Each result that is displayed links you back to the record in Minnesota Reflections.

As of April 1, 2009, we have added 60 Minnesota Reflections participant collections to the WorldCat database (about 9,700 items) and are well over halfway done with the project. If you don't see your collection yet in WorldCat it will be added soon!

If you have questions about your Minnesota Reflections content in WorldCat, contact Marian Rengel, Outreach Coordinator, MDL.

Minnesota Finder Brings Together Digital Collections

Minnesota Finder lets you search for images in four of Minnesota's online collections from the MDL site.

Minnesota Finder, a beta search project of the Minnesota Digital Library, is now available for MDL users.

Minnesota Finder lets you search for images in four of Minnesota's online collections from the MDL site. Included in the project are:

• Pennington County Historical Society
• Vivarium, an online digital collection at the College of St. Benedict/St. John's University
• Visual Resources Database at the Minnesota Historical Society
• Minnesota Reflections, the signature database of the Minnesota Digital Library

For example, if you search for "rabbit" using Minnesota Finder, you will retrieve 12 pages of search results with 20 results per page. The retrievals include pictures, photos, and maps (even a photo of a sculpture) from these four collections. Click on the image or images you want to explore, and you will be transferred into the contributing organization's database to see the full image.

Minnesota Finder, which is powered by a Google Mini search appliance, is still under development.

We encourage everyone to try it and provide us with feedback.

Creation and development of Minnesota Finder is supported by Library Service and Technology Act grant unding from State Library Services in the Minnesota Department of Education.

Phase 5 Project Proposals Update

Applications are now available for Phase 5 of Minnesota Reflections.

Round 2 of digitization work for Minnesota Reflections is underway. We are accepting applications at any time.

If you are working on an application for a digitization project, please submit it as soon as possible. Preliminary interest is high, so apply yet this fall. That way you will ensure your project a place in line once your application is approved.

If you are considering a project but still have questions, contact Marian Rengel, MDL outreach coordinator, to talk over your ideas. She will help you think through projects and sort through your ideas.

We have already committed 33 percent of our digitization funds to projects.

If you are new to the Minnesota Digital Library and its digitization efforts, contact Marian too. We'd love to work with new organizations to digitize their collections and provide access to them to the people of Minnesota.

• Phase 5 Application Forms
  Use the Word file (.doc) for your application. The .pdf file is not at this time an interactive form.

Minnesota Digital Library Featured in St. Cloud State University Podcast

Marian Rengel, outreach coordinator of the Minnesota Digital Library, was the guest on a recent episode of St. Cloud State University's Small Bytes podcast program. Small Bytes features discussions of technology-based issues. Hosts are Mark Monn, Bob Lessinger and Brad Graham from SCSU's information technology staff.

• Download the Minnesota Digital Library podcast (MP3; 28 minutes / 19.2 MB)
  (Windows: right-click and choose "Save Link As"; Mac OS: <control>-click and choose "Download Linked File")

New Collections Added to Minnesota Reflections

Fire tug torrent in action—Two Harbors, MN, circa 1912. Image courtesy of Minnesota Reflections.

Minnesota Reflections has grown a lot in the last year. The Minnesota Digital Library digitized more than 10,000 photos, maps, and document pages in 2007-08. Among the highlights of the collections added are:

• Basilica of Saint Mary in Minneapolis
  Architectural drawings, pencil sketches, and three blueprints of construction of the Basilica.
• Archbishop Ireland Memorial Library at the University of St. Thomas
  A collection of catechism materials from Christian religions translated into Dakota and Ojibwe in the 1800s by missionaries. (Note: These are in the native language, not English, and include a collection of writings on temperance—abstaining from drinking alcohol—by Archbishop John Ireland and Monsignor Joseph Reardon.)
• Minnesota Geological Survey
  A collection of the maps by the Survey of Minnesota going back into the late 1800s and spanning the decades since, all with information important to understanding the geology and geography of Minnesota.
• Coming soon will be a series of annual reports from the Extension Service Office in Dodge County that highlights activities from 1923-1981.

Organizations contributing for the first time brought more plat books and photographs to the collection. First time contributors include:

• Jackson County Historical Society
• Morrison County Historical Society
• Crow Wing County Historical Society
• Milaca Area Historical Society
• Probstfield Farm Living History Foundation
• Waseca County Historical Society
• Minnesota Mining Museum
  Includes a series of photographs showing how to lower a mule into a mine shaft.
• Luther Seminary

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Pachyderm Training Projects 2008

Screenshot from "Native Americans' Role in MN's History".

In March of 2008, the Minnesota Digital Library provided training to eight teachers to help them create learning objects using the collections from Minnesota Reflections and Pachyderm, a new multimedia authoring program. The teachers, some K-12, some higher ed, and one from a contributing historical society, created teaching units. We are proud to make those objects available at this website.

• Pachyderm Training Projects 2008

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New Teacher Resources

Screenshot from the History Mysteries interactive resource.

The MDLC presents two new interactive curriculum resources for educators to use with students. These curriculum resources were developed by Sandbox Studios in coordination with K-12 teachers with funding from the MDLC through LSTA grant administered by the Minnesota Department of Education.

• A Foot in Two Worlds: Indian Boarding Schools in Minnesota
  This unit pairs images of Minnesota's Indian schools with the words of students and policy-makers around the country to paint a picture of a mixture of experiences at Indian schools and beyond. The unit includes a student worksheet and a bibliography of additional resources.
• History Mysteries
  This unit of five "history mystery" modules teaches students how to examine photographs to uncover the story behind the image. The unit includes a student worksheet.

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MDLC Receives AASLH Award of Merit

The Minnesota Digital Library Coalition received a National Leadership in History Award of Merit from the American Association of State and Local History at that organization's annual meeting on September 16, 2006 in Phoenix, AZ. Ben Leonard, director of the Nicollet County Historical Society and a member of the MDLC steering committee, accepted the award, which recognized the MDLC for "broadening access to historic images through Minnesota Reflections."

The AASLH selection committee chose the MDLC for this award because of its "ability to collaborate with so many institutions to improve public access to historic images using the highest digital standards."

Resources for Teachers Available

Screenshot from the "Immigrants in Minnesota" interactive resource.

The MDLC is pleased to release three resources to support educational use of Minnesota Reflections. All three resources take a look into a theme identified previously, "Immigrants in Minnesota," and use selected historic photographs and documents drawn from the collections in Minnesota Reflections.

Each resource is intended to show how digital resources can be integrated into the curriculum through student-centered projects through Teacher Guide, a PowerPoint presentation, and a Pachyderm presentation. Pachyderm is a new multimedia authoring tool developed through a partnership led by the New Media Consortium and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and funded by a grant from the Institute for Museum and Library Services (IMLS). The MDLC is interested in expanding opportunities for using digital resources in learning and instruction; we invite your comment.

• Learn more about "Immigrants in Minnesota: A Demonstration Project"

The "Immigrants in Minnesota" resources were authored by Kris Wetterlund and Scott Sayre of Sandbox Studios under a contract with the MDL. We thank them for their continuing interest in and support for the efforts of the MDL.

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Manuscript Transcription Standards Adopted

At its June 2006 meeting, the MDL Steering Committee adopted Grace Lee Nute's "Transcribing Manuscripts: Rules Worked Out by the Minnesota Historical Society" to guide transcription of handwritten documents that are digitized by the MDL.

Nute's original pamphlet was published in 1935 and adopted by Lydia Lucas in 2004. During the current documents digitization project, the MDL will address areas where the guideline needs to be revised to accommodate the online environment and retain a truthful representation of the original; a revision to meet MDL standards will be published later.

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An Update on the MDL from Bill DeJohn

In Minnesota Digital Library—An Update, Bill DeJohn, Director of Minitex, discusses the administrative changes for the Minnesota Digital Library. The changes will take effect on July 1, 2006, the start of the next LSTA grant.

• Minnesota Digital Library—An Update (PDF; 22 KB)

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2006 MDL Annual Meeting

The 4th Annual Meeting of the Minnesota Digital Library attracted 140 people who came together to discuss the use of MDL resources, contributing to the MDL through Minnesota Reflections, and the continuing work of the Minnesota Digital Library Coalition.

Session topics included:

• How you can be part of the MDL
• Digital resources and the K-12 community
• What comes next for the MDL?
• Develop a presentation using Minnesota Reflections
• Beyond photos: digitizing documents and maps
• How to be popular and make money with digital images
• Scanning 101
• Metadata 101
• Choosing what to digitize

See the complete program (available in Adobe PDF or MS Word) for a list of speakers.

• 2006 MDL Annual Meeting Program: PDF (PDF; 47 KB)
• 2006 MDL Annual Meeting Program: Word (Word; 76 KB)

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2005 MDLC Annual Conference

The Minnesota Digital Library Coalition held its 3rd annual conference on Monday, June 6, 2005, at the Minnesota History Center in St. Paul. The conference attracted 106 librarians, archivists, educators and museum staff from around Minnesota.

• 2005 MDLC Annual Conference Program (PDF; 11 KB)

Conference presentations online:

• Building Minnesota Reflections
  —John Butler, University of Minnesota
  —Jason Roy, Minnesota Historical Society

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