Funded Projects Query Form
One match

Three digitization events at the Indianapolis Public Library focused on preserving local history materials. Follow-up public outreach events would focus on the area’s African American community, which represents over a quarter of the city’s population, and would highlight such topics as jazz, Negro League baseball, and land ownership. The events would encourage digitization of photographs, family and church records, personal letters, and other documents, with the possibility of digitizing audiovisual materials separately. With donor permission, digitized materials would be made available via Digital Indy, the library’s digital collections and exhibition site.

Everyday Experience: African Americans in Indianapolis will provide opportunities for the digitization of family heritage materials from Indianapolis’ African Americans, while also presenting engaging public programming to both educate and celebrate that heritage with the wider community. The Indianapolis Public Library will hold at least three public scan-a-thons to create a new digital collection focused on the African-American experience. Based on the items digitized, the Library will also host public programming to explore and provide context for the materials collected. Programming topics could include Negro League Baseball, Jazz on Indiana Avenue or an exploration of neighborhood segregation. With the correct permissions, the digitized materials will become part of the Library’s digital collections, available to the public, researchers and more. The project dovetails with the Library’s digitization efforts and creation of a Center for Black Literature and Culture.