Happy Birthday ODIN!

Less than one year from the initial meeting, and less than 6 months from signing the contract UND Chester Fritz Library is the first library to go live.

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For more information on the history of ODIN, please see the timeline for The Early Years found at the bottom of the Home Page and this direct link:  https://www.odin.nodak.edu/history/early-years

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Email sent to ODIN Libraries:

Subject: Happy Birthday ODIN
On this day 35 years ago….

• We were riding along, listening to some Def Leppard while on a road trip with Raymond ‘excellent driver’ Babbit in Rain Man.
• Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time was challenging us to explore how the universe began,
• Roald Dahl’s Matilda was encouraging us to, “Be outrageous. Go the whole hog. Make sure everything you do is so completely crazy it's unbelievable...”

…and Frank Slater, with a small team – including Shelby Harken and Ellen Kotrba – are in the basement of Chester Fritz embarking on an outrageous adventure of their own. With a flip of a switch, the PALS server running just the Catalog and PAC modules hums to life and thus begins ODIN’s completely crazy and unbelievable journey of 35 years and counting. 

In part what makes the ODIN story so unbelievable has been there from the very beginning. The “Original Participants” could check just about every box in the “type of library” column: small and large; public and private; academic, public, school, health, and state agencies – something that is rarely seen in one library consortium. This diversity of libraries presents challenges but also tremendous opportu         nity to build strong foundations. Community – Trust – Collaboration – Support - these are the pillars that have been built on top of that foundation laid in that Grand Forks basement and upon which we continue to build upon today.  As our services mature and expand and we collectively face new (and age-old) challenges, our collective past assures us that ODIN can not only can weather the storms but thrive. I encourage all of us to take a moment today to reflect on your own contributions to the success of the ODIN community over the years. Your partnership and support are truly appreciated, and we would not be where we are today without all our awesome members!    

So, I say, for the next 35, let’s go the whole hog because the last 35 have been nothing short of an outrageous and unbelievably crazy ride!

Please join me in wishing ODIN a Happy Birthday and I look forward to celebrating with you for many more years to come. 

We are working on a few more activities throughout the year to celebrate so be on the lookout for those messages later this year.      

Best,