current music as part of the local studies collection

Denver Public Library has a local music site (you can listen to samples if you don't have a library card from them) as do Madison Public Library, Johnson County Library and others.

Music is important, and it has been harder to collect local content in this area.  These libraries have found a solution and it also makes it easy for people to listen to local musicians. This has many excellent local studies possibilities as well as current content.

I found out about these examples because I follow the Library as incubator project blog.

Winged Victory, story telling and local studies

This was in a flier which was distributed by the council

as was this
 
This article appeared in the local paper

You can read more about the Winged Victory ale here, here, and here, and more about the Winged Victory here, and the Marrickville ANZAC march here.

It struck me, that what I find most interesting in this is the story telling.  It is local history, connected to an international event, but through the new storytelling, interesting people in the past in a way they can connect to.

There is a lot of the commemoration of the centenary of the First World War which is not good, but this, because it is connecting to the local war memorial seems to work.  It is a very different depiction to that given in this very impressive and moving, then and now photograph series in the Guardian

Brilliant Gallipoli Then & Now from @GuardianAus http://t.co/zbTfUxMmZZ
— Paul Hagon (@paulhagon) April 23, 2015

but it still works.

You can see a Storify here showing how Winged Victory was depicted as part of Marrickville remembers.

The beermat
 
and the growler
 

Kathryn Clark: foreclosure series - local studies potential

K A T H R Y N C L A R K: foreclosure series: From 1999 to 2004, I worked for a private urban planning firm designing New Urbanist neighborhoods throughout the US. In 2007, as f...



----------------------------

I came across this via Betsy Greer's craftivism board on Pinterest. I was struck by the potential for local studies, as I often am when looking at many amazing things which are made. These quilts tell the story of land, in different local areas.  They are much more complex than this too, as art works, and as art works calling for action.  You can read a bit more about the quilts here.

Public markets and their potential for local studies

I follow Project for Public Spaces through various social media, which is where I saw this Storify.  I follow Project for Public Spaces because libraries are public spaces (depending on location and legislation), and I think there are some great ideas which libraries can use. I think libraries should always be public spaces - but sometimes need a bit of help to be effective public spaces.

When I saw this Storify I thought of local studies.  Of photographing local markets, and doing oral history recordings.  Also of of collecting stories and images from markets which no longer exist or have changed.  Current stories and collecting is important, because of the snapshot in time perspective.

creating content

I use different online tools from time to time to create content.  I have been making calendars for a few years.  This year I was back to Redbubble (and I have to mention the brand so you can see the example).  I was uploading photographs for a calendar, but the site suggested lots of other things I could do with the same content.  You can see some of the examples in the image below.



































I think there is a lot of potential for public libraries to load a dozen or so photographs into this.  With a dozen photographs you have have a print on demand calendar, and then with a few more minutes spent on the site have many other merchandise options, again print on demand so there is no financial outlay for the library.  You can make sure your library logo, website, and other details are on the items, just as you do for things which are printed.  These just happen to be print on demand.

I tried some of the bags, and this is how they turned out. They look better in real life than in this photograph - and I am really pleased with them.


























This is the original photograph.
 

local studies at the supermarket - in Mossman, Queensland

These two photographs show part of the entrance to Woolworths at Mossman in Queensland. I was interested seeing the local studies information as I walked in, as I have not noticed it in other supermarkets. It seemed an interesting inclusion.

glamourous and grim local studies

Side streets of Chelsea part 2 by @daveinlocal is a lovely blog post.  I am a fan of this blog and enjoy all the posts, and part of it is the diversity of subject matter covered.  This post about Chelsea is grim, with lovely photographs is side streets and back alleys.  These are not pretty photographs, but they are wonderful and amazing.

This highlights the importance in local studies of showing the grim as well as the glamourous.  We have both in our lives and in our communities, and it helps us to understand the past to see this.  It should not be all one or the other.  This is effectively demonstrated in this blog with the latest post being of The ladies and gentlemen: figures in the landscape.

Go and enjoy The library time machine blog.

Local studies, music and dance - a few ideas

Music seems to be under represented in many local studies collections in public libraries.   It could be that I am looking in the wrong places, however, I don't see many public libraries anywhere with a music collection as part of how they collect and tell the local stories of their community, and few with stories of music from or about their area.  I realise that this is a difficult area, but it is also possible to collect in these areas, as Cork, for example is doing.

Music is a way for story telling for the local community, as bands and singing groups interact in different such as in pubs or community halls.  Music is an important connector for a community and can be important as a community meeting point.  There is much potential for oral histories to be done in this area, and to collect music which has been created as part of library programs.


Exhibit: 1908, When the Democrats Came to Denver from The Denver Public Library on Vimeo.

Some songs specifically mention place names and these should be collected for local studies, in the same way some libraries include recipe books in local studies collections when they have been written by locals (for example books by Bill Granger and Kylie Kwong form part of the local studies collection at Surry Hills Library, only a few minutes from where their restaurants are located).  

Working with local musicians (and they don't have to be famous, just local) as a way of collecting audio and video content is important. They don’t have to be famous, but being local is important.  Don’t forget copyright, work with it.

The Library of Congress has a national jukebox, you could have a local one.  The Smithsonian has Folkways, which has some very local music as part of the collection.

A recent article from the MIT Centre for Civic Media called Dancing in the square: street music as activism, shows some aspects as to why music is a crucial for local studies collections as it helps to tell the story of a community.  This article about punk rock from New York has some similar inspiration for local studies work.  Dongan Hills Public Library has a Wuseum, because of hip hop.   I think there are exciting music or music related collecting opportunities for local studies collections.  You might even want to collect the sounds of your community, expanding the idea of acoustic records of your area (as the British Library is doing).

I haven't mentioned dance much, but the principles are basically the same.  Your local studies information/archives/recordings in the library will be tracking local changes over time - a very exciting thing to be able to do.

I had just finished this post when I saw this Keeping things fresh: Steampunk rapper Professor Elemental on hip-hop and education and this one by Matt Finch.  Both of these posts help show (implicitly) the importance of music to a local studies collection in a public library.