Friends Memorial Church Collection

When Muncie’s Friends Memorial Church celebrated their centennial in 2008 by removing the contents of a time capsule placed in the cornerstone of their building in 1908, they found an unpleasant surprise. Water had seeped in through a hole in the metal container holding the historical objects carefully placed there a hundred years before. Many of the items were damaged, mildewed, or moldy. Some seemed beyond repair or salvage.

Mrs. Pat Barnett and other members of the congregation contacted John Straw in the University Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections to see what might be done to preserve these valuable relics of the church’s past. John Straw and Maren L. Read, Archivist for Manuscript Collections, paid a visit to inspect the items and provide professional advice.

The result was a collaborative project between the Friends Memorial Church and the University Libraries to digitize the contents of the time capsule and make them available in the Digital Media Repository (http://libx.bsu.edu/). The same was done for other items in the church’s archives and for materials in the Libraries’ Archives and Special Collections about the history of the church.

The Friends Memorial Church Collection is now available online at the following address: http://libx.bsu.edu/collection.php?CISOROOT=/FrndsMem Items in the digital collection include photographs, a handwritten church roster from 1906, the building contract, histories, directories, reports, and issues of the Muncie Evening Press and the Muncie Evening Star with articles and photographs about the church. The water damage done to the items is apparent in several of the digital images.

The Friends congregation held their first meeting in 1876. The first meetings were in a private home north of the Courthouse Square and later in a public hall above retail rooms across from the old Delaware County Courthouse in the 100 block of North High Street. The first church building was erected at Mulberry and Seymour streets in 1903, and the current church was built in 1908.

The Libraries’ collaboration with the Friends Memorial Church will continue as more items from their archives are digitized and made available over time. For more information on the Digital Media Repository, contact John B. Straw, Assistant Dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, JStraw@bsu.edu, or 765-285-5078.

Newest DMR Collection Represents Community Partnership

The Yorktown-Mount Pleasant Historical Alliance Collection contains photographs, newspaper clippings, and other artifacts representing the rich history of Yorktown and
Mount Pleasant Township, Indiana, from 1888 to 2007.

This collection is an example of how partnerships between cultural institutions and digital repositories can be so advantageous. Through this collaboration, University Libraries adds to its collection of digital research materials, and the Yorktown-Mount Pleasant Historical Alliance is provided the opportunity to have its artifacts digitally preserved and made available to a global audience.

If you would like to collaborate with University Libraries and the Digital Media Repository, contact Project Coordinator John Straw.

Ball State DMR Represented at Regional Conference

Tomorrow, March 18, 2009, marks the start of the Fourth Annual Midwest CONTENTdm Users Group Conference, to be held at Purdue University in West Lafayette, IN. Members of Ball State Metadata and Digital Initiatives and Archives and Special Collections will be reporting on special DMR projects, metadata issues, automation techniques, and more. See the conference website for details, or contact a BSU MADI librarian or archivist for more information on thier presentation.

http://www.lib.purdue.edu/spcol/mug/

Rotating Videos in Educational Resources Realia Collections

This Zulu Witch Doctor Doll video is a frame-by-frame example of a 3D Rotating Video included in the Digital Media Repository. These videos, assembled using VRWorx software, allow us to show 3D objects from all sides. In the DMR, users can control the rotation speed, zoom in, and zoom out in the video.

The DMR contains digital representations of several "realia" items from University Libraries Educational Resources. Realia refers objects used by educators in order to teach students about world cultures, science, music, and other real-world concepts. The DMR contains Dolls, Fossils, Musical Instruments, and more. To view all the realia collections, Browse Collections and sort by Format. Click on 3D Objects. These are only a sampling of what's available for checkout from Educational Resources.

Muncie Economic Development Oral Histories Use Embedding Technology

The Muncie Economic Development Oral Histories, also known as Muncie's Response to Economic Change: An Oral History, includes oral history interviews with local civic and business leaders involved in past and current efforts to address long-term economic change in Muncie and Delaware County, Indiana.

It is a subcollection of the larger Middletown Digital Oral History Collections, which is comprised of over 200 audio and corresponding transcript files embedded together on the same page. Embedding the PDF transcript was easy--that functionality comes standard with the latest version of CONTENTdm. However, we wanted to have the audio and transcript in the same window so that users could listen and read along at the same time.

The resulting interface allows users to just that. Read Budi Wibowo's article on how to embed the audio player here on page 8 of Library Insider Vol. 6 Iss. 12.

Muncie Civic Theatre Collection Displays Searchable Theatre Programs

The Muncie Civic Theatre Collection includes programs from plays presented by the Muncie Civic Theatre from its inception in 1931 through 1986, with additional programs from 1996 and 2005.

View the collection here: http://libx.bsu.edu/collection.php?CISOROOT=/MunCiv.

The programs were scanned in the Ball State University Libraries Digitization Center. Each was OCR processed, so the documents are fully searchable in the DMR and through Google. They were uploaded to the DMR in PDF format. Metadata records indicate the performance dates of each play.

BSU Libraries Obtain Book Scanner

The BookDrive DIY book scanner is the latest addition to the University Libraries' Digitization Center.

This book digitization solution was purchased as part of an LSTA Digitization Grant awarded to create a Middletown Women’s History Digital Collection. The collection contains several bound materials such as scrapbooks and diaries that we couldn't safely capture on a flatbed scanner. Due to the fragility and uniqueness of materials the collection, it was necessary to purchase a scanner that "cradles" the items, rather than stressing the bindings with traditional flatbed scanning. Digitization of bound materials began this week with minutes from the Community Woman’s Club Records, ca.1904-1955. We'll continue through the rest of the grant materials and move to other rare and historic bound items from Archives and Special Collections soon.