Ball State University Libraries Announce New and Improved Digital Media Repository

The Ball State University Libraries are pleased to introduce a new and 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.


Improved zooming and panning features enhance
access to rich digital resources

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.


User tagging feature provides 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.

Muncie City Improvement Resolutions Collection

The Muncie City Improvement Resolutions digital collection includes city ordinances, resolutions, and other records from the City Clerk's office in Muncie, Indiana ranging from 1891-1922 regarding street, alley, sidewalk, and sewer improvements in the city and surrounding areas.

The collection will be of interest to researchers examining the history of a wide variety of local government and city planning topics including the development of Muncie's infrastructure in specific locations, community support for and opposition against proposed infrastructure changes, and trends in city infrastructure development at the turn of the Twentieth Century. Maps documenting the names of property owners and the location of their property impacted by infrastructure development will be of particular interest to researchers trying to identify property ownership in specific areas of Muncie.

Alley between Walnut St. and Mulberry St, from Gilbert St. to North St.

This collection can be searched by keywords and linked metadata fields that allow quick access to related material within the collection. To return results for all items within a particular folder of the print collection or all items related to particular resolution number:

1. Enter a keyword search.

2. Select a search result that matches your research need.

3. Scroll down the page to the metadata fields in red font.

4. Click on the linked metadata to the right of the "Folder Name" or "Resolution Number" field.

(Please note that the "Resolution Number" field only appears when a resolution number was assigned to a particular document and does not appear for all items in this collection.)

This online collection includes digital copies of the entirety of the Muncie City Improvement Resolutions collection in Archives and Special Collections.

John Nelson Bell Papers

The John Nelson Bell digital collection includes account books, daybooks, and medical treatment notes ranging from 1887-1922 that document the medical training and practice of John Nelson Bell in New Burlington, Indiana.

John Nelson Bell daybook, 1896-1899

John Nelson Bell was born in Morgantown, Virginia on April 21, 1858 to Henry and Louise (Swisher) Bell. He began teaching school at age sixteen and supplemented his education by taking classes at a normal school. He entered Starling Medical College in Columbus, Ohio in 1884 and left for the Medical College of Ohio two years later. As he neared the end of his studies, Bell learned that Samuel Jump, the practicing physician in Perry Township, Delaware County, Indiana, had received a presidential appointment as the Selma postmaster and would be moving to Liberty Township. After graduating from the Medical College of Ohio in the spring of 1888, Dr. Bell came to Delaware County to fill that vacancy in Perry Township and began his practice in New Burlington. He would continue to practice medicine in the Delaware County community of New Burlington for forty years.

The account books in this digital collection document John Nelson Bell's financial dealings including payment methods of patients and the cost of medical supplies. His daybooks document the schedule of a small town doctor as well as more detailed information such as patient names, general reasons for visits, and charges for services. His medical school and treatment notes document the training of medical doctors and common medical treatments at the turn of the century for a wide variety of maladies including burns, colic, hay fever, laryngitis, tetanus, and typhoid fever.

This online collection includes digital copies of the entirety of the John Nelson Bell papers in Archives and Special Collections.

Ball State Board of Trustees Minutes Collection added to the DMR

The University Libraries are pleased to announce the addition of the Ball State Board of Trustees Minutes Collection to the Digital Media Repository (DMR). This collection includes minutes between 1990 and 2012; additional years will be added in the future.

In order to provide optimal searching and viewing of these records, the University Libraries fast-tracked an installation and configuration of a new instance of CONTENTdm, the platform that powers the DMR. The latest CONTENTdm version fully supports in-document searching, page highlighting, collection browsing, and easy document downloading.

Members of the University Libraries staff in Library Information Technology Services, Archives and Special Collections, and Metadata and Digital Initiatives contributed to publishing this collection for search and discovery. Special thanks and recognition are also due to engineers in Unified Communications Services for making network configuration changes so the system is available everywhere.

Ball State University Student Life Collection

The Ball State University Student Life Collection contains an assortment of digitized textual records and artifacts broadly documenting the diverse range of student experiences at Ball State University with materials dating from the institution's founding in 1918 to the 1990s. Materials available here were selected for digitization from a variety of individual archival collections at the Ball State University Archives & Special Collections.

This digital collection includes editions of the Ball State Teachers College/University student handbook, also known as the Cardinal Code, a selection of scrapbooks created by Ball State students documenting campus life, newsletters published by a variety of student organizations, Ball State homecoming buttons, pamphlets, brochures, and leaflets containing information for students, and material documenting this history of the L.A. Pittenger Student Center.


Clicking on the image will allow you to browse the collection.



Other digital collections that contain materials documenting student life include The Orient yearbooks, the Ball State University Student Newspaper collection, the Ball State University Campus Photographs collection, and the Ball State University Historic Films and Videos collection.

Johnson and Miller Architectural Records

The online collection of Johnson & Miller Architectural Records consists of 123 projects spanning the long history of the architectural firm and its subsequent firms from the 1910s to the 1980s. Over the years, Johnson & Miller and its successor firms were responsible for designing numerous schools, university buildings, government offices, religious buildings, recreation facilities, hospitals, and businesses in Terre Haute, Indiana, and the surrounding area.

MacMillan "Mac" Houston Johnson, who had studied at DePauw University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, originally opened his practice in Brazil, Indiana, in 1910. He was joined the following year by Warren D. Miller after his graduation from the architecture program at the University of Pennsylvania, and the firm then changed its name to Johnson & Miller. The partners established a second office in Terre Haute's Ball Building on Ohio Street a year later and maintained both offices until 1915. At that time they closed the Brazil branch and moved the Terre Haute branch to 105 S. Seventh Street.

Warren's brother, Ewing H. Miller, also studied architecture at the University of Pennsylvania and joined the firm in 1919 after completing military service. The firm was then known as Johnson, Miller and Miller.

Numerous fluctuations of the firm's principals were to follow in quick succession due to the untimely deaths of Mac Johnson and Ewing Miller a few months apart in 1923 and the additions of other architects. It became Johnson, Miller, Miller & Yeager (1924-29), Miller & Yeager (1930-45), Miller, Yeager & Vrydaugh (1946), Miller & Vrydaugh (1947-54), and then Miller, Vrydaugh & Miller when Ewing H. Miller's son, Ewing H. Miller II, joined the firm after also studying architecture at the University of Pennsylvania.
When Allison "Al" Vrydaugh left the firm the name became Miller, Miller & Associates (1962-65) until Warren Miller's retirement which resulted in the name Ewing Miller Associates (1966-70). Ewing Miller later started Archonics Corporation, which had offices in Fort Wayne, Terre Haute, and Indianapolis.

Clicking on the image will allow you to browse the collection



We are proud to present.....Sharley B. DeMotte Scrapbooks!

The Sharley B. DeMotte Scrapbooks collection provides online access to 23 digitized scrapbooks containing newspaper clippings documenting the history of Ball State from 1925 to 1954.

Sharley DeMotte, an alumna of Indiana University, came to Ball State in 1925 as a faculty member, teaching English and journalism classes at the college until her retirement in 1954. In addition to her teaching duties, DeMotte was the founder-director of the Ball State News Bureau, the forerunner to University Marketing and Communications, and served as an advisor for all student publications, including the Ball State Daily News and the Orient yearbook.

Her collection of scrapbooks includes newspaper clippings from student and local publications and documents the social, cultural, and administrative history of Ball State from 1925 to 1954. The scrapbooks are arranged chronologically, with each book covering one academic year or a range of years, and are available to be searched full-text.



Clicking on the image will allow you to browse the 23 scrapbooks in the collection

 

A significant portion of the scrapbooks in this collection document the impact of World War II on Ball State, including the establishment of branches of the Army Specialized Training Program and the Civilian Pilot Training Program on campus. Articles regarding Ball State students contributing to the war effort overseas are also heavily documented.

In addition to documenting Ball State's contribution to the war effort through scrapbooking, DeMotte was instrumental in coordinating correspondence between Ball State community members at home and in war. In 1960, DeMotte was honored as a namesake for DeMotte Hall in the DeHority Complex dormitory on the Ball State campus. Sharley DeMotte passed away on January 24, 1978 at the age of 89.

A finding aid for the physical collection of Sharley B. DeMotte scrapbooks held in Archives & Special Collections is also available.