Hi everyone,
FYI - if you have an idea but don't have the time to do it, the University of Michigan School of Information is often looking for project proposals for their graduate students to complete as part of their classwork.
We recently wrapped up a collaboration with two students in their Special Projects in Librarianship and Archival Practice. Our community has a Facebook group called "Good Ol' Haskell" that is devoted to the local history of Wanaque, Haskell and Midvale. There are about 4,100 active members, including people who are longtime residents of this area and people who grew up here and moved away. The group is unique because it is exclusively focused on local history and many people share old photos, memories and personal reminiscences of past events.
If you're interested, here's a 20-minute video in which I discussed the project with the students and with one of the moderators of the Good Ol' Haskell Facebook group: https://youtu.be/NFVTsGHI9Pk and I also made a view-only copy of the Facebook group's index that we created, and you can find that here: https://wanaquelibrary.tiny.us/2p8ne3xh
I met with the students for about 15 minutes a week so we could all be sure we were on the same page. The students were great to work with.
If you are interested in learning about the next time we can submit project proposals to UMSI, here's where you can get on their email list https://www.si.umich.edu/host-student-project
This was a good experience for the library, for the members of the Facebook group and for the students.
Regards,
Mary
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Mary Martin, Director
Wanaque Public Library
616 Ringwood Ave, Wanaque, NJ 07465
973-839-4434 / fax: 973-839-8904
martin [at] wanaquelibrary.org
"Save the time of the user" - Ranganathan's (modified) fourth law