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Statewide Projects

Introduction

The Montana State Library continually seeks opportunities for potential statewide library pilot projects. Improving Montana library services is the focus, from better delivery of materials to direct consortial borrowing to improved technology and bandwidth capabilities. Library staff are encouraged to contact the Statewide Projects Librarian with any ideas for cooperative efforts that would improve services for the Montana library community, from sharing content to enhancing technology skills and infrastructure to identifying and meeting continuing education needs.
Prairie County Library
Terry, MT


Interested? Contact:
Cara Orban

Discover it!
Discover It! is Montana’s statewide integrated search tool designed to perform a comprehensive search of all of your library’s resources, from catalogs to databases to digital collections and more. The statewide EBSCO databases, the Montana Memory Project, the Montana Shared Catalog, WorldCat.org, MontanaLibrary2Go, HeritageQuest, and two large public library catalogs (Butte-Silver Bow Public Library and Great Falls Public Library) have been incorporated into this one-stop search. Any library in the state of Montana has access to a unique profile that can be customized to meet the needs of its community. If you would like to add a search box for Discover It! to your library’s website, customize your library’s profile, or if you would like more information, please use the contact link on this page.

HomeworkMT
“HomeworkMT” offers free online tutoring, academic resources, writing assistance and preparatory testing materials from Tutor.com for all Montana residents. Montanans can get help in math, science, social studies or English from a live tutor as part of this statewide service. The service can be accessed from a Montana public, school, academic or special library or from your home computer.  Tutors are available Sunday through Thursday 2 p.m. — 11 p.m. The SkillsCenter is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

This service is provided to Montana citizens and libraries by the Montana State Library, through an allocation from the Montana Legislature.

For an overview of Tutor.com, click here. 

URL to access HomeworkMT: http://homeworkmt.org 

HomeworkMT is a single, shared statewide website.
Authentication is by GeoIP  exclusively.

Courier Pilot Project
“Phase Two” of the Statewide Courier Project includes a group of libraries served by Critelli Couriers, a Butte based courier service. For a list of the libraries, current service schedule, sample routing slips and more information, go here.

FY12 LSTA is available to a limited number of identified libraries whose selection is based on Phase One volume, courier activity and on geographic area. For more information, please contact Cara Orban.

Are you geographically A-where?
Montana State Library Geographic Literacy Campaign
Based on the principles of Information Literacy, this campaign is designed to serve both Montana librarians and Montana library patrons to identify and formulate geographic inquiries, to identify and use geographic and natural resources-related information sources to discover needed information, and to help users understand how this information can be used to answer a wide variety of information needs from any discipline.

Please give us your feedback (doc)

Goals:
  • Educate librarians to identify geographic (spatial) inquiries
  • Develop a suite of subject guides and packaged web resources to respond to geographic and natural resources inquiries (Natural Resources Kiosks)
  • Develop a curriculum for web-based online trainings to educate librarians and patrons about geographic and natural resources principles and topics
  • Develop a marketing campaign to promote geographic literacy as a part of the wider MSL literacy campaigns
  • Increase Montanans familiarity with and use of the Montana Natural Resource Information Systems (NRIS)
Useful NRIS resources:

EZProxy Pilots
EZProxy is a product of OCLC that provides centralized authentication. Library patrons need only enter identifying information one time to have access to a variety of library resources including a library catalog and/or online databases. MSL is currently conducting two pilots use EZProxy software. In the first pilot, the State Library and the Missoula Public Library, along with four other libraries nation-wide, are helping OCLC test a hosted instance of EZProxy. Patrons accessing Missoula’s statewide and individual database subscriptions from outside the library now enter their patron ID only once to gain access to a suite of different database subscriptions Missoula Public Library provides. The pilot launched July 10 and continues for 4 months. Locally, the State Library is launching EZProxy authentication statewide (doc), through a statewide license from OCLC. The first libraries to be configured for one-stop remote authentication into the statewide databases are the MSC libraries, followed by libraries with interoperable ILS. The first goal is to enable one-stop authentication remotely into the statewide subscription databases and the public libraries’ HeritageQuest subscription.  Eventually, individual library subscriptions will be added.

  • Montana State Library
  • P.O. Box 201800, 1515 East 6th Avenue
  • Helena, MT 59620-1800
  • Phone: (406) 444-3115
  • Fax: (406) 444-0266
  • msl.mt.gov