2-minute Tour of Gail Borden Public Library
Quick Tour of the Gail Borden Public Library as shown on the Elgin Today Show.
140 Years of Service - the Gail Borden Public Library
Gail Borden Public Library celebrates 140 years of service to this community in 2014. The library first opened its doors in 1794.
New Drive Up Window at Gail Borden Public Library
New Drive Up Window at Gail Borden Public Library
eReaders at Gail Borden Library
Downloading eBooks for free using your library card.
Gail Borden Library's Rakow Branch
Summer Reading Challenge at the Rakow Branch and Gail Borden Library's 140th Anniversary Celebration
The Wall That Heals and the Big Read - Elgin, IL
The Wall That Heals is a half-scale replica of the original Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. Its mission is to preserve the legacy of The Wall, promote healing and educate about the impact of the Vietnam War. It is the most fitting and recognized tribute to the fallen of the Vietnam War.
The Wall was open to the public all day and night from September 19-22, 2013.
Gail Borden Public Library Tales & Travel Program
Tales & Travel is a program designed to use library materials to enrich the lives of people with Alzheimer's Disease. In a comfortable setting, librarians and volunteers lead the group as they read a folktale, browse through books and converse about a chosen country or region of the U.S.
Manufacture Your Future and Digital Media Lab Grand Opening at Gail Borden Library
Manufacture Your Future featuring Elgin area manufacturers will take place September 27 to October 5 at the library. The grand opening of Studio 270 Digital Media Lab will be Oct. 7 at 6 pm.
ECC Library grand opening
Brian Beecher, Assistant Dean for the new ECC library, provides an overview of the facility's amenities as well as invites the community to sample what the library has to offer.
Building Dreams - Space: Dare to Dream
Space: Dare to Dream at the Gail Borden Public Library
Elgin, Illinois
Elgin is a city in Cook and Kane counties in the northern part of the U.S. state of Illinois. Located roughly 35 mi (56 km) northwest of Chicago, it lies along the Fox River. As of 2013, the city had a total population of 110,145, making it the eighth-largest city in Illinois.
The Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the Black Hawk Indian War of 1832 led to the expulsion of the Native Americans who had settlements and burial mounds in the area, and set the stage for the founding of Elgin. Thousands of militiamen and soldiers of Gen. Winfield Scott's army marched through the Fox River valley during the war, and accounts of the area's fertile soils and flowing springs soon filtered east.
In New York, James T. Gifford and his brother Hezekiah Gifford heard tales of this area ripe for settlement, and travelled west. Looking for a site on the stagecoach route from Chicago to Galena, Illinois, they eventually settled on a spot where the Fox River could be bridged. In April 1835, they established the city, naming it after the Scottish tune Elgin.
Early Elgin achieved fame for the butter and dairy goods it sold to the city of Chicago. Gail Borden established a condensed milk factory here in 1866, and the local library is named in his honor. The dairy industry became less important with the arrival of the Elgin Watch Company. The watch factory employed three generations of Elginites from the late 19th to the mid 20th century, when it was the largest producer of fine watches in the United States (the factory ceased production in 1965 and was torn down in the summer of 1966) and the operator of the largest watchmaking complex in the world. Today, the clocks at Chicago's Union Station still bear the Elgin name.
Elgin has a long tradition of education and invention. Elgin is home to the Elgin Academy, the oldest coeducational, non-sectarian college preparatory school west of the Allegheny Mountains. Elgin High School boasts five navy admirals, a Nobel Prize winner, a Pulitzer Prize winner, a Tony Award winner, two Academy Award–winning producers, Olympic athletes and a General Motors CEO among its alumni. Elgin resident John Murphy invented the motorized streetsweeper in 1914 and later formed the Elgin Sweeper Corporation. Pioneering African-American chemist Lloyd Hall was an Elgin native, as was the legendary marketer and car stereo pioneer Earl Madman Muntz and Max Adler, founder of the Adler Planetarium in Chicago, America's first planetarium.
Local historian E. C. Alft has written several books and an ongoing newspaper column about Elgin's history.
Matt Wilhelm at the Lockport Public Library
Here are a few of the tricks that X-games medalist Matt Wilhelm performed at his show for children and teens at the Lockport Public Library (part of the Des Plaines Valley Public Library District)
2011 Community Thanksgiving Luncheon in Elgin Illinois
Celebrating the 33rd annual Community Thanksgiving luncheon coordinated by the Elgin Area Chamber with more than 200 community representatives. Thanks to our co-sponsors of the event, Elgin Post No. 57 American Legion Color Guard and to the students and art teachers in School District U-46 for the beautiful handmade Thanksgiving centerpieces!
Co-sponsors include: Altrusa International Club of Elgin, Association for Individual Development, Boys & Girls Club of Elgin, Centro de Informacion, City of Elgin, Community Crisis Center, DayOne Network, Easter Seals DuPage and Fox Valley, Elgin Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, Elgin Area Leadership Academy, Elgin Children's Chorus, Elgin Community College, Elgin Fox Valley Kiwanis, Elgin Garden Club, Elgin Symphony Orchestra, Gail Borden Public Library, Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois, Greater Elgin Family Care Center, Judson University
Kiwanis Club of Elgin, The Larkin Center, Little Angels, Prairie Valley Family YMCA,
Provena Saint Joseph Hospital, S.C.O.R.E., School District U-46, Sherman Hospital, United Way of Elgin, and VNA Health Care.
Libraries and the 2020 Census
There are 12,741,080 reasons for Illinois public libraries to make Census 2020 a priority.
The results of the 2020 count will determine your community’s political representation and share of federal funding for a decade or more. Each uncounted person will equal a loss of $15,350
in funding toward medical assistance, local schools and higher education, social services, infrastructure investment and more over the course of 10 years.
Learn how to get your library involved with the 2020 Census. Participate in person at the RAILS Burr Ridge Service Center or stream it at live.railslibraries.info.
Speakers will include:
• Denise Raleigh, Division Chief of Public Relations & Communications at Gail Borden Public Library
• Anita Banerji, Director of Democracy Initiative, Forefront
• Representative Theresa Mah, Illinois General Assembly, 2nd District
Topics include:
• How Census data will be used in your community: redistricting, financial implications of under-count
• Challenges and opportunities for libraries surrounding a digital decennial census (including privacy, digital literacy, internet access)
• How to identify and reach the Hard-To-Count people in your community (outreach, programming, Complete Count Commissions)
Leave with ideas to build a scalable committee framework for your community, information on grant opportunities through the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) in the coming weeks, and resource sharing to help your front-line and professional staff become comfortable in assisting the public when filling out their form online in our spaces.
Elgin Illinois
U.S. police officer speaks to a group of young loiterers with respect. Policing done correctly!
Ken Ericson from Elgin Illinois
Elgin Illinois Radio Fest & Auction late 1980's
Elgin Illinois Radio Fest & Auction late 1980's
video camera was a JVC VHSC
ZombieFest 2011 at Gail Borden Library
Zombies invaded Gail Borden Library on October 26 to learn Michael Jackson's Thriller dance as taught by instructors at Dixon Dance Academy.
Flood in Elgin Illinois!
Video of me and my friend running through the flooded park by my house it was pretty fun - enjoy randomness haha
This Day In Texas History January 18-19, 1836
The day by day accounts of what happened in Texas during the revolution as the continued split in leadership causes the men of the Alamo to threaten to march to the capital and put Governor Henry Smith back in charge.
Toboganning in Elgin
Fun in the snow with the Bongers family in the last weekend of 2007!!