Drawings + Documents Archive: The Movie!

Learn about the Drawings + Documents Archive by watching our new, LEGO stop-motion movie on YouTube! (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y8wSirnkAYo) Follow Sarah, a student at the College of Architecture and Planning, as she navigates primary source researching at the archive and learns about all of the resources available to her--from original architectural drawings to 3-D prints.

Archives staff is incredibly grateful for the talents of its graduate assistants, particularly Raluca Filimon who directed the project, and for the enthusiasm of our narrator, Paul Jones, who stopped in one morning to remind us to buy donuts in the atrium and became an integral part of the project. 

Ball State University Libraries Announce Enhanced Digital Media Repository

The Ball State University Libraries are pleased to introduce a new and much improved Digital Media Repository (DMR), featuring a redesigned interface and incorporating the latest updates to CONTENTdm, the repository’s content management system. The newly designed DMR provides a more dynamic and interactive user experience, highlighting the value of the repository’s diverse digital collections and enhancing the discovery, visibility, searching of digital resources that support learning, teaching, and research.

New features include an enhanced image viewer that provides for easy zooming and panning, allowing users to enjoy a greater level of interactivity with DMR’s varied and diverse visual materials, including photographs, maps, and architectural drawings. The newly designed repository incorporates user comments and tagging to provide digital users with a more social experience. For a list of Drawings + Documents Archive collections currently in the DMR, please visit our website.

User tagging feature provides an interactive, social experience

New image downloading options give users increased access to archival material and educational content. Enhanced Search Engine Optimization improves the discoverability of DMR assets in web search engines, expanding the global reach of Ball State University’s unique digital content.  These new enhancements make the DMR a dynamic and interactive learning and research tool for Ball State students and faculty, and for users worldwide.

Archives and Architecture Library Receive AIA Award

The Drawings + Documents Archive and the Architecture Library were honored to receive the 2012 Walter S. Blackburn Award from the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Indiana Chapter at the AIA Indiana and Kentucky Convention held in Lexington, Kentucky, last week. Named after Walter S. Blackburn, FAIA, an African American architect who led the AIA Diversity Taskforce and served the Indiana arts and architecture communities, this award is given annually to a non-architect person or organization that has contributed time and service in support of the architectural profession.

It's a good time of the year to be thankful, and we're incredibly thankful for the support and recognition by the faculty, students, alumni, and the administration at Ball State University. We're especially thankful to Professor Emeritus Tony Costello, FAIA, for nominating the Archives and Library, and wish him congratulations on receiving the prestigious Gold Award for his role in educating and mentoring architecture students and helping give Indiana architects national visibility.

Image: 2012 AIA Indiana and Kentucky convention, from left to right, Josh Coggeshall, Bruce Race, FAIA, Tony Costello, FAIA, (Gold Award winner), Carol Street (Blackburn Award winner), and Amy Trendler (Blackburn Award winner). Photo courtesy of Vera Adams.

Indiana State Library receives NEH grant to digitize historic Indiana newspapers

This will be a boon to architecture historians who currently have to squint through viewing reels of microfilms, or worse, turn the crumbling pages of 100 year-old newspapers, to find information on the structures reported on in the papers. Representatives from Ball State University Libraries will be on the project's advisory group.

From the Indiana State Library's press release:

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has awarded a $293,157 grant to the Indiana State Library to digitize Indiana’s historically significant newspapers. Indiana joins 25 states participating in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP), a partnership between the NEH, the Library of Congress and participating states to provide enhanced access to American newspapers published between 1836 and 1922. Newspapers digitized as part of this two-year project will be included in the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America Database (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/).

“This grant is crucial to the State’s efforts to provide optimal public access to Indiana’s historical documents and cultural heritage,” said Jim Corridan, State Archivist and Associate Director of the Indiana State Library. “The State Library houses millions of copies of historic Hoosier newspapers and this initiative will enable Hoosiers instant access to these collections via the internet.”

The Indiana State Library will be assisted on the project by an advisory group of representatives from the Indiana Commission on Public Library, the Indiana Historical Bureau, Ball State University, the Hoosier Press Foundation, the Indiana Historical Society, the Indiana University School of Journalism and Indiana University Purdue University Indianapolis. The advisory group will develop criteria for inclusion of historic papers and ultimately select the newspapers to be digitized.

In addition to the Indiana papers presence in the Chronicling America Database, the digitized papers will also be available through Indiana Memory (http://www.indianamemory.org/) – a collaborative effort to provide access to the wealth of primary sources in Indiana libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions. Indiana Memory's mission is to create and maintain a digital library that enables free public access to Indiana's unique cultural and historical heritage. Through information and pictures found in digitized books, manuscripts, photographs, newspapers, maps, and other digital materials available on the Indiana Memory website, the program seeks to enhance education and scholarship of Indiana's past. As a portal to the collections, Indiana Memory assists individuals to locate materials relevant to their interests and to better appreciate the connections between those materials.