ABOUT THE LIBRARY
New IMCPL Grants Enhance Technology-Based Services
July 7, 2005
Marion County residents will benefit from new and renewed library services because of recent grants to the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library totaling over $600,000.
The largest grant of $577,500 from the Central Indiana Community Foundation Library Fund supports the Marion County Internet Library, a collection of 10 commercial databases that offer authoritative business, government and education resources. Local university and high school libraries will continue to provide access for their students and faculty to the Internet Library. All Marion County residents will have access to the databases from public computers in IMCPL locations. Any IMCPL cardholder will be able to access them from home or work.
IMCPL has received a $27,500 grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to continue support of 55 PC's obtained from an original Gates grant in 2000. Eleven PC's were used to create the Computer Training Lab at Central Library and the Interim Central Library, while 44 were installed at 11 inner city IMCPL branches. More than simply providing patrons with computer access, the grant enables the Library to emphasize technology literacy and the ability for patrons to do job searches, resume creation, business research, and file online immigration and college applications.
Finally, a $12,000 grant, as part of the federal Library Services and Technology Act, will allow the Library to digitize its collection of the May Wright Sewall Papers, consisting of approximately 500 letters written to the Indianapolis resident, nationally-known educator, and peace and women's rights advocate from 1879 to 1919, along with three volumes of her guest book entries.
The project will involve scanning and cataloging the items and making them available on the Library's website.
Many letters reflect Mrs. Sewall's involvement in the development of numerous local and national organizations, such as the Indianapolis Propylaeum, the Girl's Classical School and the National Woman's Suffrage Association. In 1891-92, she traveled extensively through Europe to build support for the World's Congress of Representative Women held in 1893 Chicago. In 1915, Mrs. Sewall was a delegate aboard Henry Ford's Peace ship, a private effort to end to World War I.
Those represented in Mrs. Sewall's correspondence include Indiana artist T.C. Steele, Hoosier author Booth Tarkington, abolitionist Lucretia Mott, Woodrow Wilson, Clara Barton, Helen Douglass (the wife of Frederick Douglas), and numerous foreign royal dignitaries.
