2017 MLA Annual Conference

One-hundred years ago, Saint Paul Public Library (SPPL) expanded from a single building to a network of neighborhood libraries, improving access to books and resources for Saint Paul residents. This year, SPPL celebrates the centennial of four of those early buildings with a new story-gathering campaign: 100 Years/100 Stories. This campaign is an expanding collection of stories from SPPL's community, as told through written word, photography, audio, and video. In celebration of one-hundred years of the library in the community, SPPL developed a set of fun, easy-to-use tools that allow patrons to share their stories directly. These tools include: Digital Scrapbook, StoryPhone, and StoryKit  The Digital Scrapbook is a collection of stories and items from our community that live online and can be interacted with individually. It's the digital hub for the campaign, used to collect and exhibit stories. Patrons can use it to upload audio, video, photos, and text.  StoryPhone allows patrons to call a Google Voice number and leave their story on their own time, in whatever setting they choose. Featuring a fun, easy-to-use set of audiovisual and artistic tools, StoryKit puts storytelling tools directly in the hands of patrons, who can check them out at their local library for up to three weeks! This session will touch on these platforms, how other libraries can replicate them, and the lessons SPPL learned in implementing them to kick off more concerted community engagement efforts. Attendees will hear from frontline library staff who have used these tools, in addition to SPPL's communications staff who developed them.