From the Archives and
Special Collections Blog
What Middletown Read Exhibit at Ball State University Libraries
A new exhibit in Archives and Special Collections on the second
floor of Bracken Library tells the story of What Middletown Read. The exhibit, “What Middletown Read: Building a
Digital Tool to Uncover the Past” runs from March 11 to June 28.
Since the original Middletown study conducted by Robert and Helen
Lynd in the 1920s, which resulted in the seminal work Middletown: A Study in
American Culture and was followed by many other studies and projects on
Middletown, Muncie has been perhaps the most studied community in the world. In 2011, a new project resulted in information
about the reading habits of residents of Middle America as represented by the
citizens of Muncie.
The What Middletown Read
project was born from a discovery of library ledgers containing circulation
records from 1891-1902 that were uncovered during a renovation of the Muncie
Public Library in 2003. Dr. Frank
Felsenstein, Reed D. Voran Honors Distinguished Professor in Humanities and
Professor of English at Ball State University, was in the Muncie Public Library
preparing for a class on the history of the book when he discovered the
treasure trove of ledgers and other documents and brought them to light. Out of that find came a collaboration between
Ball State University and the Muncie Public library that led to development of
the “What Middletown Read Database” (accessible at www.bsu.edu/libraries/wmr)
The creation of this
database has enabled researchers to take a deeper look into Muncie’s past and
uncover a sense of the life and culture of the late 1800s based on what people were
reading and who they were. Stephanie
Mathis, a student in Dr. Felsenstein’s Honors College class in 2007, also
created a map showing the locations of the original readers georeferenced on a
map of Muncie. This map is currently
exhibited in the windows of the GIS Research and Map Collection on the second
floor of Bracken Library.
To discover more about
this research tool, its creation, and the research results generated, visit Ball
State University Libraries’ Bracken Library outside Room BL 210. For more information on the exhibit, contact
Archives and Special Collections at 765-285-5078 or email libarchives@bsu.edu.