By Jessica L., Genealogy and Local History Librarian
Traditional museums often have very large collections of materials that they can’t display all at once. The Louvre, one of the most famous museums in the world, is also one of the largest. They display a little under 40,000 items at a single time, which is less than 10% of their vast collection!
Here in the Crossroads Discovery Center, we certainly don’t have as many collection items as the Louvre, but we do have archival materials that are too fragile to be out on our public shelves and that need to be kept in storage.
One of our jobs here is to get as much of that material accessible to you, the public, as possible.
One way we do that is by processing and digitizing our archival collections. Some of these collections are well-known and loved by our genealogy and local history community, like our Noblesville High School yearbooks. We have copies of every yearbook published by the Noblesville High School through the present day. You can come to our space on the second floor of the Noblesville branch and request any year of yearbook to peruse!
Other collections are online, like our Joe Roberts Collection. These live on Indiana Memory, a platform run by the Indiana State Library that HEPL contributes to. The photographs in this collection are mostly of Noblesville buildings through time. One big piece of our online collections is the 1923 Centennial parade photos. Hosted in Noblesville, this parade celebrated the 100-year anniversary of Hamilton County and Noblesville’s founding in 1823. Each float has a photo, and it’s a “who’s who” of Noblesville and county businesses and organizations.
Float representing Boxley with a log cabin, from the 1923 Hamilton County Centennial Celebration Collection, Hamilton East Public Library
As we continue to work with our archival collections, we are always thinking about what collections to digitize and how to make other collections accessible for research. For our physical collections, we make finding aids, which are documents that explain what a collection is, what’s in it, and the context behind it – information that would help a researcher find the collection and what they need within it. We are working on a centralized location to get to these finding aids – for now, find them on our CRDC page under the heading “Online Resources,” then expand the “Archival Collections in the Crossroads Discovery Center” menu. One example of our finding aids is for the “Richwine Apartment Building Collection.” Recognizable in downtown Noblesville from its yellow brick, the building’s architect has been highlighted by David Heighway in a previous blog. Our collection has materials from the construction of this building – from receipts for window screens to correspondence relating to those famous bricks!
A historic postcard of the Richwine Building, from the Joe Roberts Collection, Hamilton East Public Library
To access any of our collections, reach out to us ([email protected] or 317-770-3236) and set up an appointment to come see the materials.
On the digitization end of things, we are working hard to continue the legacy of previous Indiana Room projects. We are adding city directories and phone books to our Indiana Memory collection so it’s easier than ever to look for names and addresses. We’re also excited about two new photography collections we have just published with the help of our volunteers – the Irving Heath Photo Collection and the Hamilton County Slide Collection, 1985.
The Irving Heath Photo Collection consists mostly of photographs of Noblesville in the 1950s-1970s. There are also some earlier, historically significant photos that Irv collected copies of as well. One of the most significant parts of this collection are the photos of the Zeckel’s building collapse in 1952. In Noblesville, this downtown building collapsed because work being done on the building made it unstable. While only a few people got hurt, it meant the loss of a significant part of a historic building downtown. The Joseph Block, which today hosts in part the NobleMade gift store, is missing part of its building as you can see in the photos below.
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- Photo of the Zeckel building collapse, Hamilton East Public Library
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- From Google Maps
The Hamilton County Slide Collection is from 1985 and was created through an agreement between the library and a local photographer at the time. These slides were meant to capture historic buildings in Noblesville and throughout the county. They are in color and are a fascinating look at this time period in Hamilton County history. Many buildings still stand, but many have since been demolished, reminding us of how quickly things can change in the landscape of history. We are still looking for positive identification of some buildings and places – if you think you’ve got it, reach out to us with the photo title and your guess! Some of my favorite photos are of buildings I didn’t get the chance to see, like the Rainbo Roller Rink.
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- Rainbo Skating Rink in Noblesville
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- American National Bank Building, which now holds the Courthouse Club in Noblesville
Our archival collections cover many subjects – from art, to library history, to local municipal records – and here in the CRDC, we want to know what types of collections are most important to you! What types of records or information would you love to see online? How has a particular collection impacted your research? Reach out and let us know.