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March 25, 2004

Wealth of regional information available on NorthStarNet

Where can I find information about my local schools? Where can I take a Pilates class? Is there a local garden club that I can join? Since librarians hear questions such as these on a daily basis, public libraries have always collected information on the area they serve. Traditionally, librarians maintained a small card file with 3x5 index cards on each organization in their community. But with many of us living in one community, working in a second and shopping, taking a class and visiting many more, finding one place with information on what each community has to offer can be a challenge. Where or how can one find this information?



Recognizing this need for a one-stop information source, and knowing that the Internet offered a more efficient way to organize and deliver information, in 1995 the staff at the North Suburban Library System (NSLS) hatched the idea of a regional Internet information site, and called it NorthStarNet, www.northstarnet.org. The site started with four libraries. Today, NorthStarNet is a huge Web site with more than 120 suburban committees participating.



NSLS coordinates the entire project and maintains the necessary hardware and software. Library staff from the different communities recruit local organizations to develop and maintain Web sites. The range of information on these sites is enormous. A couple examples of the Web sites you may want to check out are www.chicagojobs.org and the Wagon Wheel Figure Skating Club's site at www.wwfsc.com.



NorthStarNet provides one-stop searching for over 1500 organizations. Because it is so huge, it ranks very high in search engines such as Google. As a result, the network gets more than one hit every second or 5.1 millions hits per month. Try this experiment. Go to Google (www.google.com) and put in “Park Ridge” as a search term. The last time I tried it, I got 4,140,000 hits, and the first item was the Park Ridge Community Network Home Page, which is hosted on NorthStarNet.



NorthStarNet includes a searchable calendar of events (choose “Calendar” on the NorthStarNet home page). You can search by date, subject or community. There is regional information as well. Choose “regional resources” from the Home page and you'll find links to organizations such as the Chicago Botanic Garden (with comprehensive information on plants), the Northern Illinois Planning Commission (regional demographics and planning statistics) and Avenues to Independence, which provides support for persons with developmental disabilities.



Here at NSLS we remain committed to NorthStarNet. We're constantly improving and updating it. The future of public libraries lies in their ability to be a force in the community. As the aggregator of local information, this is a very powerful role. I interviewed Mary Ann Irvine, Community Information Coordinator with the City of Park Ridge, which has a huge site on NorthStarNet. She noted that having access to many of the forms that the city uses with residents, as well as all manner of city information has made NorthStarNet and the Park Ridge Public Library indispensable resources. During the month of April, you can see this interview and more on our cable TV program, “What's New in Libraries?” For information on times and channels, go to www.whatsnewinlibraries.org and choose “Calendar.”



Is your library on NorthStarNet? Check and see at www.northstarnet.org. If not, suggest that they become involved. Initiatives such as NorthStarNet prove that libraries are as indispensable now as they were at the turn of the last century. NorthStarNet represents a new format and a new delivery mechanism available 24/7. But it provides important and relevant information to the people and that's the stuff of traditional library service.

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