Author Archives: Becky

Ready…Set…Learn: Partnering for Success

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Lisa Sensale Yazdian joined BCPL in 2007 and currently manages outreach services provided to youth, birth-17 years and to their caregivers and teachers. An educational psychologist by training, she is passionate about forging school, family, and community partnerships in support of youth learning and development.

In March of 2000 the Kentucky Legislature showed their commitment to our youngest learners by unanimously choosing to use a portion of Tobacco Settlement dollars to support early childhood programs on an annual basis through the KIDS NOW (Kentucky Invests in Developing Success NOW!) initiative. In an effort to rally communities around local early childhood needs, the Governor’s Office of Early Childhood approved the creation of Community Early Childhood Councils across the state and agreed to fund Council work through a competitive grant process.

Boone County Public Library (BCPL) has been an active participant on the Boone County Community Early Childhood Council (BC-CECC) for a number of years, along with many other community partners. The Council has been continuously funded since 2003 and monies have been used to develop and extend opportunities focused on preparing Boone County children and families for school and lifelong learning.

One Council project BCPL has been deeply involved with this fiscal year is an early literacy training series offered to several early childhood programs called Ready…Set…Learn. Beginning in January, participating infant, toddler, and preschool teachers have been attending monthly workshops aligned with the Kentucky Early Childhood Standards and the practices described in the American Library Association’s (ALA) Every Child Ready to Read® initiative. Childcare centers involved in the trainings received a set of classroom materials selected to foster early literacy learning. Some materials have been modeled by Youth Services outreach staff during their monthly storytime visits with the Community Center on Wheels (CCoW). Other materials were created specifically for the childcare centers and were discussed during training sessions. Infant/toddler classrooms, for example, received a set of Changing Table Rhymes (small posters consisting of body rhymes and songs to support adult interaction with children during diaper changes) similar to those currently hanging in some BCPL restrooms. Preschool classrooms received three StoryWalks®, modeled after the The StoryWalk® Project created by Anne Ferguson of Montpelier, VT and developed in collaboration with the Vermont Bicycle & Pedestrian Coalition and the Kellogg Hubbard Library. All participating childcare programs were asked to design and implement an event for their families using the training content and materials they received.

I was fortunate enough to observe a family engagement night hosted by CrossRoads Preschool in Hebron in April. I was immediately drawn to their StoryWalk® display at their pajama themed event.

I was happy to see some library storytime friends enjoying I Love Bugs by Philemon Sturges. They let me join them on the StoryWalk® trail which took us on adventure throughout the building.Candace

Miss Candace, a Youth Services Outreach Specialist with BCPL, was invited to read Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton and children had a chance to complete an activity related to the book.

The event was a huge success and I look forward to discovering how other centers are using Ready…Set…Learn materials to support children and families in early literacy learning.

–Lisa

 

 

 

 

 

Access local history information online from the comfort of your home!

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Jessica Vaughan has worked in the Local History and Genealogy department for the past three years. She has a B.A. in History from Northern Kentucky University. She loves working with the digital collection and plans to start graduate school in the fall in hopes to become a digital librarian. She is a native of Boone County and takes pride in educating others about the county’s history.

Did you know that the library has a whole section dedicated to Boone County and Local History? Did you know that you can access a majority of the local history collection online from the comfort of your own home? Technology is moving at a rapid speed and history is becoming widely digital. From the words of BCPL’s local historians, “People want what they want, when they want it!” Therefore, the local history department is dedicated to make the resources you want available to you without even having to drive to the library to see it.

Local History’s Digital Collection is an electronic database that holds many of our books, photographs, newspapers and videos, all viewable from our website. We even have our own Boone County Wikipedia, called The Chronicles of Boone County. If you want to learn more about Boone County towns, people, churches or genealogy in general, click on the Chronicles of Boone County on our webpage to discover your own family roots.

You can also check out the electronic family files to see if your family genealogy has been recorded. Over 900 files have been scanned and made available online for you to research without coming to the library to use. These documents consist of Boone County family genealogies, family photographs, family bibles, newspaper articles, and the list goes on. There are even tales that perhaps John Wilkes Booth is buried in Boone County nestled in the Booth family file. All you have to do is search our digital collection for the last name of the family you are looking for and all of the documents will be bundled inside the electronic file.

Historical photographs are a way for you to visually see history. Our digital collection is home to over 4,300 photographs that have been donated and digitized. You will discover history about Boone County through photographs that cannot be seen anywhere else but here. Some of our photograph collections include early town streetscapes (Burlington, Florence, Union, Petersburg, etc. from the early 1900s), the 1937 flood, the Petersburg Distillery (which was the largest in the nation at one time), excavations of mammoths at Big Bone, and many, many more. You can browse all the photographs by using the keyword “photographs” in our digital collection search toolbar. Or narrow it down by searching your home town and interests. Visit our Digital Collection by clicking here: http://www.bcpl.org/lhg/

The Boone County Recorder is the community newspaper that’s been in operation since 1875. Before now, if you wanted to see an old newspaper article you had to come to the library to view it on our microfilm machine. We have recently added the BCR to our digital collection beginning in 1875 up to 1925. The Walton Advertiser, another historical newspaper, is available digitally from 1916-1975. See how times have changed from 1875 by reading the first Boone County Recorder newspaper printed in Boone County.

Now that you are aware of all the great local history and genealogy resources available for you, start exploring your ancestors and Boone County history, because they are literally, right at your fingertips!

–Jessica