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Ball State University Archives and Special Collections: Additional Resources

Ball State University resources

  • Cardinal Scholar 
    • Cardinal Scholar is Ball State University's institutional repository providing access to Ball State's scholarly works and institutional records, including theses, dissertations, university records, and publications.
       
  • One Search 
    • OneSearch is a tool for discovering the resources in the Ball State University Libraries collections. The simple search box allows researchers to discover credible and reliable library content in one simple search and see results in a relevancy-ranked list. Researchers can access full-text content when available, locate items in the libraries' collections, or request items through interlibrary loan. For more information about how to use OneSearch, please consult the following resource: https://bsu.libguides.com/onesearch.
       
  • Andrew Seager Archive of the Built Environment
    • The Ball State University Libraries' Andrew Seager Archive of the Built Environment is dedicated to preserving the history of Indiana's built environment.  The Archive contains over 130,000 original architectural drawings, landscape plans, blueprints, photographs, models, and building remnants of Indiana’s buildings, sites, and structures.
       
  • Center for Middletown Studies
    • The Center for Middletown Studies seeks to build on the sociological studies Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937) by Robert S. and Helen Merrell Lynd. These in-depth accounts of life in Muncie, Indiana established the community as a barometer of social trends in the United States. In the years since the Lynds completed their studies, scholars in a variety of fields have returned to Muncie to follow up on their pioneering work, making this small city among the most studied communities in the nation. The Center continues this tradition primarily by sponsoring and promoting research on Muncie as Middletown, but it also sponsors investigations of similarly situated communities both in the United States and abroad, as well as on topics related to the evolution of modern society.

Indiana resources

  • Muncie Public Library
    • The Muncie Public Library provides accessible and innovative services responding to the reading, informational, educational, and enrichment needs of the local community. 
       
  • Minnetrista Cultural Center
    • Minnetrista has more than 15,000 objects in its museum collection, including artifacts and archival materials such as photographs, diaries, clothing, quilts, furniture, and locally manufactured products.
       
  • Delaware County Historical Society
    • The Delaware County Historical Society was started in 1927 to enrich the lives of Delaware County residents by preserving and telling the story of our local history. In addition to their resource library, the DCHS maintains the Moore-Youse Home Museum.
       
  • Indiana Historical Society
    • The Indiana Historical Society is one of the United States’ oldest and largest historical societies. Since 1830, IHS has connected people to the past by collecting, preserving, interpreting, and sharing the state’s history. A private, nonprofit membership organization, IHS maintains the nation’s premier research library and archives on the history of Indiana and the Old Northwest. IHS also provides support and assistance to local museums and historical groups, publishes books and periodicals, sponsors teacher workshops, and provides community programming.
       
  • Indiana State Archives
    • The Indiana State Archives exists to provide for the protection of, and access to primary-source and historical documents, and those that contribute to Indiana's heritage.

National resources

  • Library of Congress
    • The Library of Congress is the largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, newspapers, maps and manuscripts in its collections. The Library is the main research arm of the U.S. Congress and the home of the U.S. Copyright Office.
       
  • National Archives and Records Administration
    • The National Archives was established in 1934 by President Franklin Roosevelt, but its major holdings date back to 1775. NARA keeps only those Federal records that are judged to have continuing value—about 2 to 5 percent of those generated in any given year. There are approximately 10 billion pages of textual records; 12 million maps, charts, and architectural and engineering drawings; 25 million still photographs and graphics; 24 million aerial photographs; 300,000 reels of motion picture film; 400,000 video and sound recordings; and 133 terabytes of electronic data. All of these materials are preserved because they are important to the workings of Government, have long-term research worth, or provide information of value to citizens.
       
  • National Historical Publications and Records Commission Digital Resources
    • Established by Congress in 1934, the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) is a statutory body affiliated with the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). NHPRC supports a wide range of activities to preserve, publish, and encourage the use of documentary sources relating to the history of the United States.
       
  • UNESCO Digital Library
    • The UNESCO Digital Library is the repository of UNESCO’s institutional memory and a source of high-quality information on UNESCO activities with more than 350,000 documents dating back to 1945. These collections are accessible online or physically - at the library or the archives room. 
       
  • ArchiveGrid
    • ArchiveGrid includes over 5 million records describing archival materials, bringing together information about historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and more. With over 1,000 different archival institutions represented, ArchiveGrid helps researchers looking for primary source materials held in archives, libraries, museums and historical societies.
       
  • HathiTrust Digital Library
    • Founded in 2008, HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries preserving 17+ million digitized items. HathiTrust offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.