Non-Response: 0
Activity Details
Title: POWER Library: PA Photos and Documents
Narrative: Pennsylvania has a rich and varied history that has been captured in photographs, documents, and artifacts of interest. PA Photos and Documents (PaPD) enables Pennsylvanians to search and browse the content digitized by libraries and other organizations across Pennsylvania. Digitizing aging and rare historical materials is important to preserving our collective history and cultural heritage, and to making them broadly available for research and study.
The PA Photos and Documents service supports the needs of middle school students, high school students, and adults, offering primary source materials that support reports, homework assignments and research. The archive includes over 900 collections by, for, and about Pennsylvania, with over 3 million pages of scanned content viewable by subject or contributing institution. PA Photos and Documents collections are harvested for inclusion in the Digital Public Library of America (https://dp.la/), making them available for viewing from a national archive. POWER Library items represent 20-25% of the entire Pennsylvania collection material in DPLA.
The Digital Collections Specialist’s numerous site visits over the last year were great opportunities to engage with those interested in contributing to PaPD or to provide hands-on training on digitization and the PaPD uploading process. Outcomes included hearing from the Gladwyne Free Library and the Pottstown Public Library that they started up or continued an internship program to help process materials for inclusion in PaPD, along with welcoming new institutions to PaPD (Cheltenham Township Library System, German Society of Pennsylvania, Sacred Heart Academy Bryn Mawr, and the Wagner Free Institute of Science).
94 institutions provided 298 collections to PA Photos and Documents in the past year. They include the State Library, public libraries, public and private schools, academic institutions, and cultural institutions. The content ranges from yearbooks to cookbook collections, to local newspapers, and church and missionary history. Last year, over 1.4 million pages were viewed in PA Photos and Documents, continuing as the most visited service in the POWER Library.
Most libraries and small institutions do not have the funds to outsource digitization. Scan PA is designed to serve as a D-I-Y (Do It Yourself) program for small public libraries to accomplish digitization on their own. Scan PA recommends equipment to enable scanning locally, for a total cost of less than $1,000. Information about the Scan PA program is located here: https://powerlibrary.org/librarians/pa-photos-and-documents/scanpa/.
The PA Photos and Documents user interface is the open-source platform, Islandora, and is available at: https://powerlibrary.org/collections/.
Intent: Improve users’ ability to obtain and/or use information resources.
Activity: Content
Mode: Creation
Format: Digital
Quantity
Number of items digitized: 0
Number of items digitized and available to the public: 3,585,407
Number of physical items: 0
Number of open-source applications/software/systems: 0
Number of proprietary applications/software/systems: 0
Number of learning resources (e.g. toolkits, guides): 0
Number of plans/frameworks: 0
Partner Information
Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No
Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No
Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: No
For a targeted group or for the general population: General
Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types
Public Libraries: 469
Academic Libraries: 95
SLAA: 1
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 51
School Libraries: 2212
Other: 0
Activity Details
Title: POWER Library: Chat with a Librarian
Narrative: The goal of an online statewide resource is to make information available to Pennsylvania residents 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. While POWER Library encourages residents to obtain a local library card, it is not always possible for our residents to personally interact with librarians. Chat with a Librarian is one of the ways POWER Library bridges that gap.
Pennsylvania residents have the ability to Chat with a Librarian online 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Administration of the program includes coordinating staffing of the service, training chat operators in best practices, and monitoring the quality of chat sessions provided. 362 libraries Commonwealth Libraries participated in the service staffing as we capitalized on system and district libraries sharing coverage. Local questions go to local chat operators before they become visible to the statewide cooperative, thereby increasing the sense of connection to the local library. When Pennsylvania librarians are fully occupied responding to chat sessions, or are unavailable, the service draws on librarians from an international pool of participating libraries. However, over 90% of chat sessions are picked up by POWER Library librarians, which ensures the answers are more relevant to our users. Users may ask anything, and are not prompted for any personal information, however if they wish to receive a transcript of the chat session, an email address must be provided. Last year, PA chat operators fielded over 30,000 sessions.
HSLC continues to focus on user engagement, examining the best ways to reach audiences of different ages and types by offering chat, texting and email as methods to connect with the service. Exit survey results reveal that 95% of those surveyed rated the information they received as Good, Very Good or Insanely Helpful; 97% would use the service again; 75% found the service on their library’s website or through a teacher; and 64% of users are clustered in the Philadelphia/Pittsburgh areas.
Intent: Improve users’ ability to obtain and/or use information resources.
Activity: Instruction
Mode: Consultation/drop-in/referral
Format: Virtual
Quantity
Total number of consultation/reference transactions: 30,422
Average number of consultation/reference transactions per month: 2,535
Partner Information
Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No
Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No
Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: No
For a targeted group or for the general population: General
Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types
Public Libraries: 169
Academic Libraries: 95
SLAA: 1
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 51
School Libraries: 2212
Other: 0
Activity Details
Title: POWER Library: Website Administration and Support
Narrative: The POWER Library portal is a one-stop location for online library services available to all residents of Pennsylvania. The URL www.powerlibrary.org connects users to Books, Movies and More (the statewide catalog), Chat with a Librarian (24/7 virtual reference), e-resource subscriptions for personal, educational and business use, and PA Photos and Documents, a digital archive of materials by, for, and about Pennsylvania. The web site has 541 pages specially designed for use by adults, young adults, elementary school-age students, including 257 custom pages for librarians. The documents archive holds over 7,200 files. The POWER Library website was used by 351,578 unique visitors, who accessed 1,233,103 web site pages in 769,294 browser sessions.
The main user website includes special content for the end-user, including a Job Resources page (https://powerlibrary.org/job-resources/) , a lookup tool called “Find a PA Library” (https://powerlibrary.org/about/find-a-pa-library/) that locates the closest PA libraries to an address provided by the user, and a Resume builder (https://resume-builder.powerlibrary.org/)
In addition to the main user website, custom sites with resources appropriate to their audience levels are available for children in grades Pre-K - Grade 3 at https://kids.powerlibrary.org and for middle and high school students at https://teens.powerlibrary.org. Each of these sites limits the choices to just the resources most helpful to those age groups. POWER Kids and POWER Teens combined for a total of over 339,000 page visits, and over 425,000 page views.
POWER Library also serves the professional librarian and support staff communities, with "For Librarians" pages, a location for professional support material at: https://www.powerlibrary.org/librarians/. Unless restricted by contractual obligations, this content is open and available to librarians anywhere. Each POWER Library service available to the public has a corresponding location for professional support in For Librarians with documentation, training, participation information, statistics, and more. During the past fiscal year, web pages For Librarians were accessed over 92,000 times.
HSLC administration of the POWER Library program includes regularly issued e-newsletters for both librarians and the public. Past issues are available in the For Librarians section. ACCESS PENNSYLVANIA News is issued at least twice monthly and features articles that assist librarians in using the POWER Library resources, and POWER Library News is issued monthly for the general public, highlighting e-resources, Chat and other POWER Library services. Read them here: https://powerlibrary.org/librarians/library-news/.
Intent: Improve users’ ability to obtain and/or use information resources.
Activity: Content
Mode: Creation
Format: Digital
Quantity
Number of items digitized: 0
Number of items digitized and available to the public: 0
Number of physical items: 0
Number of open-source applications/software/systems: 3
Number of proprietary applications/software/systems: 2
Number of learning resources (e.g. toolkits, guides): 0
Number of plans/frameworks: 2
Partner Information
Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No
Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No
Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: No
For a targeted group or for the general population: General
Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types
Public Libraries: 469
Academic Libraries: 95
SLAA: 1
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 51
School Libraries: 2212
Other: 0
Activity Details
Title: POWER Library: Training and Instruction
Narrative: POWER Library serves two user groups: end-users and librarians. Librarians and teachers must be proficient in how to use POWER Library resources in order to show students and the general public how to use them.
Throughout the year training is scheduled to teach librarians about POWER Library resources, including how to use the statewide catalog and interlibrary loan system, chat reference services, online reference databases, and how to scan and use digitized resources. POWER Library training is designed to be flexible enough to address training needs all year long. Training is conducted annually using a combination of online documentation, in-person or webinar events, and with online recorded videos. The following guidelines are usually used for location selection: 1) Proximity for attendees to travel to/from in one day, 2) venue cost, 3) availability of parking, 4) Wi-Fi service, 5) refreshment options, and 6) feedback from last year’s training evaluations.
Intent: Improve users’ ability to obtain and/or use information resources.
Activity: Instruction
Mode: Presentation/performance
Format: Combined in-person & virtual
Quantity
Presentation/performance length (minutes): 98
Number of presentations/performances administered: 36
Average number in attendance per session: 15
Partner Information
Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No
Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No
Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: Yes
For a targeted group or for the general population: General
Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types
Public Libraries: 5
Academic Libraries: 0
SLAA: 0
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 1
School Libraries: 2
Other: 6
Activity Details
Title: POWER Library: Access to E-resources
Narrative: Use of e-resources (databases) consistently ranks highest among the statewide library services offered in the POWER Library. The POWER Library provided subscriptions to 27 online databases with thousands of full-text periodical articles, newspapers, photographs, pictures and maps to support the informational, educational, financial and personal needs of Pennsylvania citizens. These online reference databases serve the needs of Pennsylvanians from PreK though high school, college and beyond. In addition to academic support material, POWER Library e-resource topics serve the general public covering everything from repairing automobiles and lawn mowers, to offering access to articles in over 2,000 newspapers. In the fall of 2022, 958 new e-Book titles were added to POWER Library which supplemented the collections previously purchased from EBSCO and Gale, bringing the total number of e-books available to 14,556. E-books represent the highest access area of e-resources, comprising 70-80% of total views in any given month. Last year, Pennsylvanians opened 5.4 million e-books.
Intent: Improve users’ ability to obtain and/or use information resources.
Activity: Content
Mode: Acquisition
Format: Digital
Quantity
Number of hardware acquired: 0
Number of software acquired: 0
Number of licensed databases acquired: 27
Number of print materials (books & government documents) acquired: 0
Number of electronic materials acquired: 0
Number of audio/visual units (audio discs, talking books, other recordings) acquired: 0
Partner Information
Organization Type of Partner Organization(s):
Libraries: Yes
Historical Societies or Organizations: No
Museums: No
Archives: No
Cultural Heritage Organization Multi-type: No
Preschools: No
Schools: No
Adult Education: No
Human Service Organizations: No
Other: No
Legal Type of Partner Organization(s):
Federal Government: No
State Government: No
Local Government (excluding school districts): No
School District: No
Non-Profit: No
Private Sector: No
Tribe/Native Hawaiian Organization: No
Beneficiaries
Is the activity directed at the library workforce: No
For a targeted group or for the general population: General
Locale
Is the activity state-wide: Yes
Specific Locations: No
Library Types
Public Libraries: 469
Academic Libraries: 95
SLAA: 1
Consortia: 0
Special Libraries: 51
School Libraries: 2212
Other: 0
