Visiting Scholar Examines Development of 1920s Ball State and Its Relationship to Muncie as Part of Dissertation

The Ball State University Libraries have a wealth of resources to support the research of visiting scholars.

LaDale C. Winling, a Ph.D. candidate in Architectural History and Theory from the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, spent the month of July 2008 conducting research in the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections and the Geospatial Resources and Map Collection. Winling’s research was funded by Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies.

Winling is currently working on his dissertation, tentatively titled Post-Industrial Plans: Universities, Students and the Politics of Urban Space. He chose Ball State University, along with the University of Texas-Austin, University of California-Berkeley, and the University of Chicago-Hyde Park/Woodlawn, as part of a chronological case study in the changing relationship between cities and institutions of higher education.

Dr. James J. Connolly, Director of the Center for Middletown Studies, said, “Dale is here to explore connections between the development of the community and the growth of Ball State between the world wars. His study will add an interesting dimension to research on Middletown, since the school’s role in the city was all but ignored by the Lynds in their first book, as well as to the history of higher education in the United States.”

While at Ball State, Winling used a variety of resources from the Archives and Special Collections to examine the development of Ball State Teacher’s College in the 1920s through the papers of former president Lemuel A. Pittenger, college building and planning files, the Ball State Daily News, and real estate and planning records for Muncie and Delaware County. He also took advantage of the collections and GIS resources available in the Geospatial Resources and Map Collection.

Speaking of his visit, Winling said, “Researching the role of Ball State in Muncie during the Middletown years would not be possible without the rich resources on administrative activity and student life available at the university archives. Combining that with the mapping capabilities of the Geospatial Resources and documents in the Map Collection, I hope to make a significant contribution to the scholarship on Muncie.”

For more information, contact Maren L. Read, University Libraries’ Archivist for Manuscript Collections, MLRead@bsu.edu, 765-285-5078.

Membership in Consortium Saves Money for the University Libraries in Obtaining Databases

The Ball State University Libraries offer an impressive selection of electronic resources, including journals and academic databases. Our Libraries’ personnel continually strive to enhance the Libraries’ collections to meet the information needs of students and faculty while keeping pace with the ever-rising cost of scholarly resources and the tremendous increase in publishing activity.

The Academic Libraries of Indiana (ALI), a consortium of 73 academic libraries, is a partner in helping its members to achieve savings in subscription costs to academic databases. This past spring, as part of its initiative for eResources, ALI signed an agreement with the Southeastern Library Network (SOLINET) that will result in ALI member libraries being able to save money when subscribing to selected academic databases.

For the University Libraries, for example, when we renew our subscription, this agreement will produce immediate savings for the LexisNexis Academic databases, a service that includes nearly 5,000 publications spanning business and financial, environmental, legal, medical, and news.

ALI’s agreement with SOLINET brings 200 existing product offerings and 50 publisher and vendor relationships to the partnership, and SOLINET will also undertake specific negotiations on behalf of ALI and its member libraries as needed.

The University Libraries anticipate that this is only the beginning of other favorable deals to come from being an ALI member. According to an ALI Resource Advisory Committee report, “… this relationship will offer ALI member libraries a broader range of electronic resources through a single agent, at optimum pricing, with management information available to each ALI member library for resources that they have acquired.”

Ball State University Libraries’ participation in the ALI-SOLINET partnership will help enhance our students’ pursuits for academic success and will help to increase faculty endeavors for knowledge creation, research, and classroom instruction.

This initiative between ALI and SOLINET represents a significant development in cooperation among ALI libraries to increase the range of resources provided to the students, faculty, and communities that they serve while making the most of available fiscal resources. According to Dan N. Bowell, Chair of ALI’s Database Licensing Task Force and University Librarian at Taylor University’s Zondervan Library, “It provides a strong complement to the resource sharing, including direct borrowing, that exists among ALI libraries.”

For more information, contact Hilde M. Calvert, University Libraries’ Head of Collections Development and member of the ALI Database Licensing Task Force, HCalvert@bsu.edu, 765-285-8033.

Academic Libraries of Indiana’s (ALI) Board Meets at Bracken Library to Finalize Annual Member Meeting Plans

On Tuesday, April 10, 2007, the Academic Libraries of Indiana’s Board of Directors met at Ball State University in Bracken Library. The agenda was to review and finalize plans for the upcoming Annual Membership Meeting, which will be held Thursday, May 10, at the Indiana Wesleyan Conference Center in Indianapolis.

ALI is a 72-member organization. Through the synergy of its member libraries working together cooperatively, its goals are to:

· Increase access to electronic databases and content through collaboration
· Enhance quality of, access to, and curation of tangible collections
· Provide effective instructional support for students in partnership with faculty
· Support professional development and educational opportunities for librarians
· Proactively engage within member institutions, governmental organizations, statewide libraries, agencies, and schools of library and information science.

For more information, contact Arthur W. Hafner Ph.D., M.B.A., Ball State University’s Dean of University Libraries, AHafner@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5277.

This newsletter article first appeared in The Library Insider 5(4): 5; April 2007.