At the first anniversary of the release of OurStoryBridge, Jery Y. Huntley, MLS, on behalf of the Keene Valley Library, will be talking about three interrelated projects sponsored by the library and lauded by librarians, school library media specialists, and teachers across New York State and the nation. They demonstrate how libraries have have been able to offer their expertise and resources to continue to meet our patrons and how important it is to meet our patrons, especially students, in the media they prefer, online.

In this webinar you will learn about the Adirondack Community and OurStoryBridge websites and how public and school libraries can create their own local story project based on our model; explore the Teacher’s Guide contained on both websites so that you have a resource to use and share with young adults, educators, and other members of the community; and recognize how you can implement, help communicate, and improve the projects.

Note that among the goals of these projects are to:

• Capture the rich cultural history of communities with a focus on recording older generations before their histories are lost, and
• Build civic pride and engagement among young adults to encourage their growth as involved community members.
• Offer libraries unique opportunities to help build intergenerational connections in their communities

The three projects and websites you will explore are:

• OurStoryBridge, at www.ourstorybridge.org, a free resource and tool kit for producing a crowdsourced, community story project, designed to help libraries and other organizations create their own story projects using Adirondack Community as a model.
• Adirondack Community, at www.myadirondackstory.org, a multi-year local history online project that collects and organizes 3- to 5-minute audio stories and related photographs from Town of Keene community members.
• The Teacher’s Guide on both websites, which consists of the How-To document outlining how to use the stories for lessons in any school in any community; the Story Selection Chart, a tool to match stories with specific courses; the Story Summaries, brief synopses of the 200+ stories currently available; and the Sample School Assignment.

You will also learn how to use these websites and recognize how you can help communicate and improve these projects.

Think about how we in Western New York can start our OurStoryBridge projects, using these resources. And to understand what a story is, follow this link for a selection that will inspire you to hear more: https://www.ourstorybridge.org/listen-to-adirondack-community. Libraries across the country are already creating OurStoryBridge projects, even though the website was released just a year ago!

About the Presenter:

Jery Y. Huntley received her B.A. in Education and MLS at the University at Albany, but her career took a different turn after her start as a school and public librarian on Long Island. She moved back to Albany to work for the New York State Assembly, then headed to Washington, DC for a position in the U.S. House of Representatives. This led to opportunities in environmental lobbying, issues management, twenty years as a trade association CEO, and training in meeting facilitation. She lives in Washington, DC and Keene Valley, NY, and her volunteer work now includes OurStoryBridge and Adirondack Community for the Keene Valley Library and as a member of the Washington, DC and Essex County New York Medical Reserve Corps fighting COVID-19.

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