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Services: Helen B. and Martin D. Schwartz Digital Complex

Schwartz Complex

Reserve Rooms in Bracken LibraryAn innovative, flexible, and interactive learning and teaching space, the Helen B. and Martin D. Schwartz Special Collections and Digital Complex provides access to international media, broadcasts, and multimedia.

The Viewing Room features a large 85 inch high-definition display ideal for presentations and information visualization from an in-room presenter station or a laptop.  The Viewing Room accommodates 30 persons. 

The Learning Pod Room is a configurable active learning space featuring 6 individual computer learning pods and a central instructor station or a laptop.  The room, with a total capacity of 36 persons, accommodates both individual work at the pods stations as well as delivery of content from the instructor computer to all pods screens.  This space is open and available for student use when not reserved. 

Martin and Helen Schwartz


Martin D. and Helen B. Schwartz

 Martin D. and Helen B. Schwartz have a long history of supporting Ball State University and the University Libraries. Contributions include the funds to enable Archives and Special Collections to have prints made of more than 2,000 photographic negatives, providing a rich resource for local history enthusiasts, local and national journalists, scholars, faculty members, and students. University Libraries has since digitized the photographs and made the images available to researchers in the Ball State Digital Media Repository. 

Other contributions to the University Libraries include the establishment of the Nancy K. Turner Fund, the donation of the Martin Schwartz Papers and Schwartz Paper Company Records to Archives and Special Collections, and a bronze sculpture by Hungarian artist Imre Varga titled Raoul Wallenberg in Budapest. Through the Muncie Community Foundation, Mr. Schwartz has given grants to support the purchase of rare books and manuscript material for Archives and Special Collections and the translation, transcription, and digitization of the Felsenstein Family Papers, which document the lives of a German Jewish family during World War II and the Holocaust. 

In memory of his late wife, Helen, Mr. Schwartz provided funds to create the Helen B. and Martin D. Schwartz Special Collections and Digital Complex, which provides a high-tech collaborative learning space for Ball State students and faculty. 

Mr. and Mrs. Schwartz were married in 1940 and had four daughters, Judith, Susan (passed away in 2002), Deborah, and Joan.