116 Years of History

Did you know that Marathon County Public Library in Wausau had its own koi pond? Or that Wausau had a School of Nursing? These are just two interesting historical facts that have been uncovered during our digitization project.

Through the support of WiLS Ideas to Action grant, we have been working to digitize our collection of oral histories that were taped in 1975 and 1976, as part of the Marathon County Heritage Program. Some of the oral histories were copied to CD, but there remained a number of tapes that were not. We were able to order a tape to digital convertor that allowed us to listen and digitize these tapes. In addition, we were able to use Audacity, a free audio program, which allowed us to clean up the CDs and tapes. By doing so, we were able to make these voices from the past clearer and more understandable than they were before.

An even smaller fraction of the CDs were transcribed. Through the WiLS, we were able to purchase a subscription to Otter.ai, which creates a transcript of the oral histories. Each transcript was edited and footnotes were added, to provide additional information or clarification.

We’ve also been digitizing our library and local history. The grant has allowed us to also purchase photo sleeves, to sort and organize the many photos we have of library history, especially the history of our Book Mobile. These photos and documents also describe the development of our county library system from a collection of smaller libraries that circulated books to their communities into the comprehensive county library it is today. Originally, these local “stations,” were housed in the back of a local store, a room in a private home and even the break room at the Brokaw paper mill, usually organized and run by local women. From here, the county library system grew, until the Wausau Public Library and the Marathon County Public Library were merged in the late 1960’s. We were surprised to discover a picture of a meeting of the County Sections of the WLA in our files, featuring one of our longest serving librarians, Kay Biwer.

Without the WiLS Ideas to Actions grant, this deep dive into local history would not have been possible and we are looking forward to sharing the results. Currently, our yearbook collection up to 2000 has been added to the Central Wisconsin Digitization Project, as well as a small collection of historical plat books from 1882, 1895 and 1901. Included in this collection is also a book created by the county highway department that shows the development of townships in our county. We are grateful to the WiLS grant for allowing us to begin bringing this history to a wider audience.

— Julie K., Adult Services Librarian

Originally published here: https://www.wils.org/blog/ideas-to-action-marathon-county-public-library-116-years-of-history