The Newspaper Section with the State Library's Indiana Collection has a variety of tasks with which volunteers can assist. For the past year, Kerry Ware, a history major at IUPUI, has been volunteering in this area. She will be graduating in May and is planning to start a Masters Degree in Library Science at the IUPUI School of Informatics & Computing next year. Because she has a special interest in history and in historic newspapers, she is an ideal fit for this volunteer position. She works in the newspaper section about three hours a week, as her school schedule permits.
Kerry has been working on updating the Newspaper Holdings Guides, which are binders that include lists of newspapers by city and county that our library patrons can use to find newspapers on microfilm. These holdings guides are very important to the Indiana Division in providing excellent customer service to our library patrons. Kerry checks these holding guides against the actual microfilm reels stored in cabinets to make sure they are accurate. She then updates the files and prints them to put into the finding aid binders.
For the last several months, Kerry has been helping with an inventory of ISL’s out-of-state newspaper print collection. These original papers from the 1820’s-1870’s can be very dusty. Some of the papers are also brittle and delicate. She must be sure to use a mask and gloves when working with these papers.
Kerry has also been helping take inventory of newspaper donations from patrons. Some of these papers are quite old and valuable. This is painstaking and detailed work, but it is very important to the growth of the State Library’s newspaper collection.
Because of Kerry’s diligent and dedicated volunteer work, the Indiana Division Newspaper Section is more complete and our finding aids are up-to -date. We are grateful that Kerry continues to volunteer and we wish her success as she begins her Masters of Library Science.
 Volunteer Preserving, Digitizing Rare Print Collection
Megan Bettag, a Rare Books and Manuscripts volunteer, is working on the Indiana State Library’s artist print collection. This collection includes several drawings, paintings, and three-dimensional objects created by artists from around the state of Indiana.
Megan is describing each item in a content management system and identifying proper storage and handling techniques for the collection. These items will be digitized and made accessible in Indiana Memory.
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