Support libraries! Contact your Congressional representative regarding the Executive Order to defund the Institute of Museum and Library Services. Without Federal funding, Interlibrary Loan and other valuable library services to public, K-12, academic, and special libraries will be at risk! Minitex services will be greatly impacted if funding is lost.

Minitex services offer a variety of resources including scholarly databases from high school to graduate level, item requests from libraries across the state, historical archives, job and licensure exam preparation, over 9,000 e-books for all ages, and a robust online module for writing, editing, and publishing your own work. This article describes just one of these amazing resources, “The Minnesota Digital Library.” This resource allows access to historical content from Minnesota’s cultural heritage organizations, all in one place.

You can find “The Minnesota Digital Library” on the New Ulm Public Library website at www.newulmlibrary.org. First, scroll down to “Digital Library,” then click on “Minitex” from the list to the left and click on the green Minitex link. You will get a message that says you are leaving our website. Click “proceed to site.” Finally, select “Minnesota Digital Library.” On the “Minnesota Digital Library” page, you’ll notice many choices. For example, “Browse by Topic,” “Browse by Contributor” and “Browse by Topic” are listed near the top of the page. Because the collection is likely new to you, I recommend browsing the curated resources listed further down the page, under the heading “Digital Storytelling,” to familiarize yourself with the variety of resources available before trying to type in search terms on the page.

Here are just a few of the offerings you’ll find in the curated collections:

• Exhibits – Explore a wide range of topics in Minnesota history and culture. A couple notable exhibits to check include “The Fires of 1918” and “Minnesota Immigrants: Immigrant experiences.”

• Maps – Visit significant places in Minnesota history by viewing the “Carnegie Libraries Map” or the “Mississippi River Map.”

• Timelines – Learn about Minnesota history from key moments in the past. The timeline “Architectural Styles” features many popular architectural styles found in Minnesota over the years. A book of house plans published by Minnesota architect Glenn L Saxton is included in this timeline collection.

• Primary Source Sets – Examine a historical topic through collections of primary and secondary sources, including letters, photographs, advertisements, oral histories, postcards, newsletters, speeches, and more. This resource is great for educators. Each set includes discussion questions, as well as information about primary sources in general. Check out “Laura Ingalls Wilder’s On the Banks of Plum Creek” to see old photographs surrounding themes and ideas laid out in the book. Or see how people survived and coped with storms, flood and fires in “Natural Disasters of Minnesota.” Of course I loved learning about “Traveling Library Services in Minnesota!”

If you do not have an internet accessible device or internet at home, you can always use WiFi and computers at the library. Prefer to do research at home? The library also has hotspots–devices that provide internet to your home–as well as Chromebooks available for checkout with no cost to you with your library card.

The Minnesota Library Association has an easy-to-fill-out form for emailing your representative on its advocacy page: https://sites.google.com/gsuite.larl.org/mnlibraryadvocacy?usp=sharing

New Ulm Public Library is located at 17 North Broadway and is open Monday-Thursday from 9:30 a.m.-8 p.m. and Friday-Saturday from 9:30 a.m.-5 p.m.