Grant-Supported Projects Build Digital Resources for Learning, Teaching, and Research

The Ball State University Libraries have received several Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) digitization grants over the past five years to develop digital resources to support the academic pursuits of Ball State students and faculty. These grants have made it possible for the Libraries to provide 24/7 access to rich research materials for the citizens of Muncie, the state of Indiana, and scholars around the world.

As a result of the current LSTA digitization grant, the University Libraries have acquired a BookDrive DIY scanner that is being used to digitize deteriorating minute books of women’s organizations and diaries of local women as part of the Middletown Women’s History Digital Collection project.

This high performance book scanning platform allows personnel to scan the fragile pages of the volumes in a safe manner that protects the historical documents and provides a high quality digital image.

The scanner is like a double copy stand with two digital cameras set at 90 degree angles so that books can be photographed in a cradle rather than laid flat like they would be with a traditional flatbed scanner. This “cradling” protects the spines of fragile books by putting less stress on them.

LSTA Innovative Library Program Grant Supposrt Second Life Library Project

An LSTA Innovative Library Program Grant award in the amount of $5,400 will be used to create a virtual reference area and exhibit. These will serve as a test bed for experimentation and innovation centering on provision of digital content and library services for the expanding user population participating in Second Life, http://secondlife.com, a 3-D virtual world. The prototype reference area will provide access to subject specialists and interactive exhibit modules focused on the University Libraries’ rich resources documenting Muncie, Indiana as “Middletown,” a representative American community.

The project will allow librarians to develop the skills necessary to provide rich library resources and services using state-of-the-art new media in this emergent digital environment. The University Libraries will support the work of students and faculty in Second Life while developing best practices for the provision of library services in virtual worlds for the benefit of libraries statewide.

Second Life is a compelling 3-D virtual world where library users can meet and interact in an immersive and collaborative environment. Participants access the world using a computer and are connected in the virtual environment where they create an avatar, a virtual representation of themselves, that they can control in the same manner that one might control a video game character.

Ball State University faculty and students are increasingly using the Second Life world as a virtual classroom. Lectures are conducted and group projects are being undertaken in it. There is great potential for Second Life to become a vehicle for distance education, allowing students to interact in virtual classrooms and library spaces.

For the project, Archives and Special Collections and the Center for Middletown Studies will collaborate to develop content for the exhibit. The central purpose of the exhibit will be to provide an overview of Muncie as Middletown, a representative American community. There will be a core module that will provide an introduction to the Studies. Additional modules will present the six subject areas covered by the Middletown Studies. The modules will include interactive elements such as click-through PowerPoint presentations and hyperlinks to external resources and streaming media such as oral histories and film clips.

The reference area will include a desk and a “drop box.” The desk will be staffed on a scheduled basis and by appointment for the provision of reference services. The “drop box” acts as a mailbox allowing visitors to leave messages and questions for staff when they are absent from the desk or to schedule reference interviews with an archivist.

For more information, contact John B. Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, 765-285-5078

University Libraries Awarded LSTA Grant from Indiana State Library

An LSTA Digitization Grant award in the amount of $21,194 will be used to create a Middletown Women’s History Digital Collection to provide online access to archival materials documenting the experiences of women in Muncie, Indiana, from the 1880s through the 1930s. The resources will illuminate women’s history in the six areas of the seminal Middletown studies conducted in Muncie as a representative American community beginning in the 1920s: Getting a Living; Making a Home; Training the Young; Using Leisure; Engaging in Religious Practices; and Engaging in Community Activities.

Through increased access to diaries, correspondence, scrapbooks, and other records of women and women’s organizations, the resource will expand research opportunities in women’s studies, women’s history, U. S. history, sociology, and other disciplines. It will provide fresh historical perspective and new areas for investigation focusing on women in Middle America.

Items to be digitized include:
Altrusa Club of Muncie, Inc., Records, 1923-45
Cassady/Nelson Family Collection, 1887-90, 1926
Grace Arthur School Memory Book, 1926-32
Louise Carey School Memory Book, 1915
Mae Evans Papers from the Fred and Penny Prow Collection, 1916-31
Marsh/Ryan Family Collection, 1902
McRae Club Records, 1894-1950
Mina McCormick Becket Diaries, 1933-34
Muncie Business and Professional Women’s Club Records, 1919-62
Reticule Circle Club Records, 1927-40
Riverside Culture Club Records, 1913-34
Unitarian Universalist Church Records, 1894-1942
Women’s Club of Muncie Records, 1876-1942
Women’s Franchise League of Muncie Records, 1912-19
YWCA – Muncie, Indiana Branch Records, 1911-38

Ball State’s Center for Middletown Studies and the Women’s Studies Program will be partners in the grant project. The resources will be part of a Web-based teaching tool under development by the Center for Middletown Studies in partnership with Archives and Special Collections. Ball State’s Women’s Studies Program will provide two student interns to assist with transcription of selected hand-written items and will promote the resource through their Web site and publications. Students from the program will also utilize the materials for classes and assignments.

Over the past several years, Ball State University Libraries have utilized more than $75,000 in Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants to create digital collections. These collections have ranged from U.S. Civil War documents to oral histories to an historic anti-Ku Klux Klan newspaper.

The University Libraries Contribute to Indiana’s Digital Memory

Indiana Memory is a collaborative project of Indiana libraries, museums, archives, and other related institutions to provide digital access to the state’s unique cultural and historical heritage. The development of this state-wide digital library by the Indiana State Library is intended to serve Indiana citizens, students, lifelong learners, scholars, researchers, state and federal government, businesses, and others.

Through the continuing growth of the Ball State University Digital Media Repository, http://libx.bsu.edu/, the University Libraries are well positioned to make a significant contribution to Indiana’s long-term digital memory. Many current collections provide digital windows into the lives, history, and culture of past and present residents of East Central Indiana. Several planned and anticipated future collections will also have an Indiana focus.

The two past Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grant projects completed by the University Libraries had Indiana themes.

Created by the 2005-2006 LSTA grant, The Digital Repository of U.S. Civil War Resources from East Central Indiana, provides a rich source of handwritten letters, diaries, photographs, artifacts, and other research materials that document the involvement of Indiana soldiers and civilians during the War Between the States.

The recently completed 2006-2007 LSTA grant project focused on providing access to digital audio and transcripts of oral histories with African-American, Jewish, and Catholic citizens of Muncie, Indiana, in the Middletown Digital Oral History Collection.

The current LSTA grant project for 2007-2008 will provide access to another Indiana historical resource, The Muncie Post-Democrat newspaper. This anti-Ku Klux Klan paper from the 1920s through the 1950s is being digitized and will be accessible and searchable through the Digital Media Repository in mid-2008.

Other collections in the Digital Media Repository that preserve Indiana’s digital memory include:
· More than 5,000 historical photographs in the Middletown Digital Archives, including the Otto Sellers, W. A. Swift, Spurgeon-Greene, and Other Side of Middletown collections
· 380 issues of The Muncie Times, an African-American newspaper
· 568 photographs of Indiana courthouses in the Daniel W. Hartwig Collection
· 87 photographs of covered bridges in Indiana in the Alvin W. Holmes Collection
· 167 broadcasts of Indiana Public Radio’s Indiana ArtsDesk program dedicated to fostering awareness, appreciation, and participation in the arts in East Central Indiana
· 629 digital videos of NewsLink Indiana news briefs produced by Ball State University
· WIPB videos on Ed Ball’s Century and Gene Stratton Porter: Voice of the Limberlost
· Video, photographs, and other documentation of Robert F. Kennedy’s speech at Ball State University in 1968
· Video, photographs, and other documentation of The Man Haters, an historic 1915 silent movie filmed in Muncie, Indiana, featuring local residents in the cast

Additional Indiana-focused digital resources in the Digital Media Repository are slides of Indiana architecture in the Architecture Images Collection, Ball State campus photographs and building plans, and films by Ball State students.

As the Indiana Memory project moves forward, the digital collections being created by the Ball State University Libraries, especially through partnerships with other community, educational, cultural, and historical institutions, will provide a rich resource representing the lives, culture, history, and contributions of the citizens of East Central Indiana.

For more information on the Indiana Memory project, visit the State Library’s Web page at http://www.statelib.in.us/.
For more information about Ball State University Libraries’ Digital Media Repository, contact John B. Straw, JStraw@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5078.

Ball State University Libraries Complete the Middletown Digital Oral Histories Project

The University Libraries successfully completed the Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) Digitization Grant project for 2006-2007 in June. The LSTA funds were used to digitize, transcribe, and make available collections of oral histories in the Ball State University Digital Media Repository, http://libx.bsu.edu.

• The complete Middletown Digital Oral History Collection contains digital audio and transcripts of 188 interviews and is now available globally at
http://libx.bsu.edu/MidOrHist/midorhist.php for research and classroom use. The oral history collections include:
• Black Middletown Project, 35 interviews conducted with African-Americans in Muncie by Rutledge M. Dennis and Vivian W. Gordon from the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University respectively in 1981
• Black Muncie Project, 23 interviews conducted with African-Americans in Muncie by Mr. Hurley Goodall, Ball State professor J. Paul Mitchell, and Ball State graduate students between 1971 and 1978
• Middletown Jewish Oral History Project I, 20 interviews conducted with members of Muncie’s Jewish community by Ball State professors C. Warren Vander Hill and Dwight Hoover in 1978-1979
• Middletown Jewish Oral History Project II, 24 interviews conducted with members of Muncie’s Jewish community by Ball State professor C. Warren Vander Hill in 2003-2004
• Other Side of Middletown Project, 56 interviews conducted with African-American in Muncie by Ball State professor Eric Lassiter and a group of students as part of a collaborative ethnographic project and funded by the Virginia Ball Center for Creative Inquiry in 2003
• St. Francis of Assisi Catholic Church Project, 10 interviews conducted with members of the St. Francis of Assisi parish in 2006
• St. Lawrence Catholic Church Project, 10 interviews conducted with members of the St. Lawrence Parish in Muncie in 2006.
• St. Mary Catholic Church Project, 10 interviews conducted with members of the St. Mary Parish in Muncie in 2006

The oral histories were selected for the grant project based on the lack of representation of the African-American, Jewish, and Catholic populations of Muncie in the original Middletown study conducted by Robert and Helen Lynd in the 1920s. Students and scholars now have increased access to these resources through the Internet.

This project was truly a University Libraries-wide effort. In particular, staff from throughout the library contributed to the time-consuming and difficult task of transcribing many of the interviews. Special thanks go to all of the individuals involved in making this a successful grant project.

For information, contact John B. Straw, Director for Archives and Special Collections, Ball State University Libraries, JStraw@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5078.

University Libraries’ Personnel to Conduct Digitization Workshop for LSTA Grant Recipients at the Indiana State Library July 18, 2007

Ball State University Libraries’ Metadata and Digital Initiatives librarians will share their expertise at an Indiana State Library workshop on Wednesday, July 18, 2007.

The one-day digitization workshop is being offered to assist Indiana libraries that are recipients of Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) grants for 2007-2008 and ones who will use CONTENTdm Acquisition Station software from the Indiana State Library.

The workshop will be team-taught by James A. Bradley, Head of Metadata and Digital Initiatives; Jonathan M. Brinley, Metadata and Digital Initiatives Developer; and Amanda A. Hurford, Digital Initiatives Multimedia Developer. Topics covered will include digitization processes, archival standards, metadata production, and preservation of digital objects in a content management system, specifically CONTENTdm.

According to Bradley, the focus of the training is to present the attendees with various strategies for completing a successful digital library project.

Connie Rendfeld, LSTA Consultant at the Indiana State Library, reports that more than 30 people from throughout Indiana have already registered to attend the workshop.

For more information, contact James A. Bradley, Ball State University Libraries’ Head of Metadata & Digital Initiatives, JABradley2@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5718.

University Libraries Receive Notice of a LSTA Grant to Digitize the Muncie Post-Democrat Newspaper

The Ball State University Libraries have received notification that they have been awarded a $23,041 Library Services and Technology (LSTA) Digitization Mini-Grant for 2007-2008 to digitize The Muncie Post-Democrat. This grant support will result in the creation of The Muncie Post-Democrat Newspaper Collection.

John Straw, Director for Archives and Special Collections and Dr. Arthur W. Hafner, Dean of University Libraries, are co-Principal Investigators.

LSTA digitization grants are supported by funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services and administered by the Indiana State Library. The 2007-2008 grant will be the third consecutive LSTA digitization grant awarded to the University Libraries.

The two previous grants have resulted in the Digital Repository of U. S. Civil War Resources for East Central Indiana and the Middletown Digital Oral History Collection, both of which are available in the Digital Media Repository.

For more information, contact John B. Straw, Ball State University Libraries’ Director for Archives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5078.

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

Friends of the Alexander M. Bracken Library Annual Dinner Features Program on Digital Oral Histories

Seventy-five Friends of the Alexander M. Bracken Library attended the annual dinner at the Alumni Center on the evening of March 28 where they heard about the Middletown Digital Oral History Collection being made available in the Ball State University Digital Media Repository, a project of the University Libraries.

Following dinner and a brief business meeting, Dr. Warren Vander Hill, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Emeritus, Mr. Hurley Goodall, former Indiana state legislator, and Dr. John Weakland, Professor Emeritus of History, presented the Kirkham Lecture. They shared their experiences in conducting oral history interviews that are now being made available in digital format for global access through the Internet.

Dr. Vander Hill moderated the program. In his remarks, he compared the two Middletown Jewish Oral History projects that he conducted under the sponsorship of Mr. Martin Schwartz in 1978-79 and 2002-03. The two projects generated a total of 45 interviews.

Mr. Goodall spoke passionately about an early experience of not being able to tell young people about the history of his own race and how that motivated him to get involved with documenting the African American experience through oral history interviews and other projects. He related how much he appreciated the work that Ball State University and the University Libraries have undertaken to collect and preserve local African American history.

Dr. Weakland described the process that he and other volunteers followed in conducting recent oral history interviews with the members of the St. Francis of Assisi, St. Mary, and St. Lawrence parishes as part of the local Catholic Churches Oral History Project. The project has resulted in 30 interviews from the three parishes so far and more are planned.

Prior to the speakers’ presentations, John Straw, Director of Archives and Special Collections, presented a PowerPoint presentation on the Middletown Digital Oral History Collection project that is being funded by a $25,125 Library Services and Technology Act (LSTA) digitization grant. This is the second consecutive LSTA grant that the University Libraries have received.

Following each speaker’s remarks, a sample audio clip was played of an interview from the collection discussed by the presenter. The audience was able to follow along with the verbal remarks by seeing the accompanying transcription displayed from the Digital Media Repository collection.

During the business meeting prior to the Kirkham Lecture, Friends’ executive secretary John Straw reported that the Friends enjoyed another productive year with a growing membership of over 2,600 persons who reside in most of the 50 states and over 40 countries.

Donations by Friends through the Ball State University Foundation totaled over $34,000, which is a 36% increase compared to the previous fiscal year. These moneys are used to support the University Libraries.

Straw reported on four entertaining and informative programs sponsored this year:
· “Celebrating 30 Years of Renewing Lives: A History of Community Mental Health through CMHS and Meridian Services” presented by Ms. Suzanne Gresham, Mr. Al Rent, and Mr. Hank Milius in October
· “Founding Fathers and Signers of the Declaration of Independence” by Mr. Tom Schnuck in November
· “Organized Labor in Muncie: An Oral History,” co-sponsored by the Center for Middletown Studies, presented by Dr. James Connolly, Dr. Warren Vander Hill, and Mr. Hurley Goodall in December
· “Before Middletown: Using Historical Archaeology to View Victorian Muncie” by Dr. Christina Blanch in February


Outgoing members of the Friends’ Board of Governors in attendance were recognized with certificates of appreciation for their three years of service: Mr. Larry Campbell, Mrs. Nancy Carlson, and Ms. Gretchen Cheesman.

Three new members in attendance were welcomed to the Board with the presentation of lapel pins: Mrs. Marilyn Carey. Dr. Carol Flores, and Dr. Thomas Spotts.

Mr. Hank Milius and Mrs. Marianne Vorhees will be joining the Board as new member also but were not able to attend the dinner.

Three library student assistants received certificates and checks for $100 from the Friends as recipients of this year’s Student Recognition Awards:
· Amanda B. Ashton, Science-Health Science Library
· Holli R. Botset, Educational Resources
· Stacy L. Sowder, Main Circulation


During the dinner, Mr. Martin Schwartz was recognized in honor of his 90th birthday with a spontaneous rendition of “Happy Birthday” from the audience, led by Dr. Vander Hill. It was later learned that Dr. Phil Ball was celebrating his birthday that evening. So the event was a true celebration of Friends in more ways than one.

For more information or to join the Friends, contact John B. Straw, Executive Secretary for the Friends and the Alexander M. Bracken Library and Ball State University Libraries’ Director for Archives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, (765) 285-5078.

This newsletter article first appeared in The Library Insider 5(4): 7; April 2007.