Getting Animated

December 8, 2008

Laramie County (Wyo.) Library System is now publicizing a year-and-a-half old service that's just plain cool: An animation station where kids can make their own stop-motion movies. 0Nicole Smith helps her son Ian make a movie. "We started this as a 'discoverable'—in other words, one of the many hidden surprises throughout the library," said County Librarian Lucie Osborn. "Word-of-mouth was our greatest ally." Even without formal promotion, Osborn said that the station is "pretty much in constant use while we are open." That even includes school hours, when it's used by home-schooled children or 4- and 5-year-olds who aren't yet in school. "The animation station provides our community's youth an interactive opportunity to utilize their imaginations, work cooperatively with others, and create their own stories and films using materials provided by the library or their own pieces from home," said Osborn. She considers it a perfect fit for the library, whose mission statement includes commitments to "Be a community center for access to information, self-improvement, social interaction, cultural exposure, and leisure," and to "Use and provide state-of-the-art technology." Osborn says the animation station helps to attract non-traditional library users, particularly boys, and encourages collaborations among children or between kids and their parents. Students also use it for homework, because the videos can be downloaded and used in presentations. "A huge benefit of the animation station is that it is just fun," Osborn added. "Even though they are learning, they are mostly having fun and enjoying something they don't have access to anywhere else in Cheyenne." The station was installed for the opening of the library in summer of 2007, but the library only recently resolved a technical glitch that had prevented users from saving their movies to the web. The library web site hosts the videos, but there they are private to the filmmaker and people they e-mail it to. Users can, however, save the video on their own flash drives and post it online publicly at YouTube or similar sites if they choose. The library also selects one movie as "Video of the Month" and posts it on the animation station's web page. The animation station was made possible by a major donation that helped to fund the entire "My Library Place" project, an interactive literacy center for children created by The Burgeon Group that also includes a baby bookmobile and a book factory. Equipment includes a networked PC, monitor, and still camera in a self-contained unit.

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