Online High School Yearbooks

 

 

 

 

Many public libraries host physical collections of local high school yearbooks– what if they also linked virtually to the high school yearbooks? Cutler Memorial Library and Rockingham Free Public do, and here’s how it happens.

The Oklahoma Correctional Industries hosts The OCI Yearbook Program, free scanning of high school yearbooks. Use the contact email and phone number, ocirc at doc.ok.gov for OCI Records Conversion, (405) 527-0830. Libraries provide the yearbooks, inmates scan the pages, OCI returns a DVD to the library which chooses a site for the images. Brian Herzog’s Swiss Army Librarian offers some project background for librarians who want to know more. And yes, OCI provides packing details and pays the postage.

Google’s Open Gallery is the  Cutler Memorial Library online digital archive for historic materials of Plainfield, including the neatly typed and drawn 1934 Yearbook. The Rockingham Free Library online yearbooks link takes the reader to a Flickr account, 10 yearbooks per page.

OCI recommends loaning out the DVD for nursing home visits, individual use and high school reunions. What about copyright permission? Good question. Email amy.howlett at vermont.gov if you figure it out.

Booksale leftovers? Cutler answers

Cutler Memorial steps up to the booksale quandary.

We have a three-tier system for our discards and unaccepted donations/post-book-sale leftovers…

1. Better World Books “send” titles: they require materials be pre-scanned using their on-line tool and a barcode scanner (volunteers are very good at this), and probably only accept 1 in 25 titles, but we sent them 13 boxes this month and will probably see between $50-$75 in commission. They pay postage on books they know they can sell online and the proceeds after our commission support their non-profit which promotes literacy around the world. I love this service because it means that someone who is looking for the specific book we seek to pass along will find it via the internet!

2. Kids books and (mainstream-ish) health books in good condition: we donate to the health center and they give them away in their waiting room. We redistributed 3 boxes this way this year, so far.

3. Books that meet the criteria of Books to Prisoners (Google them and check out their web site): box them up in our smallest Brodart boxes (so postage is modest per box), label them ready to mail to Books to Prisoners. [I tried to find a Vermont connection for getting books into the prisoners here and alas, no luck.] I mention the stack of boxes ‘waiting to be adopted’ to specific patrons that I know are social-justice types, who will often take one to the post office and pay for postage. Win-win on the feel-good front, this one. We recently re-distributed 5 boxes this way.

Even with all of that, there are still approximately 20 boxes left over from our book sale that are destined for the dump. I try to put the quantity into perspective for people by pointing out that we have redistributed at least half of the material that did not sell at the book sale. But throwing out the book is not the same as throwing out the contents: there are hundreds of thousands of copies printed in most circumstances, so each copy is more like a shadow, or an echo, of the actual author’s work. It makes me feel a little better at the “book cemetery.”
Loona Brogan, Director
Cutler Memorial Library