Press release, La Porte County Public Library:
You have interesting photographs of a grandparent’s business, your ancestral home, street scenes, childhood snapshots, and other historic images in a closet and photo albums at home. Maybe you collect postcards of Indiana. The public won’t find them in your attic. That’s why the Union Mills Branch of the La Porte County Public Library is hosting a Scan-A-Thon with Indiana Album to bring Hoosier history to the public — one image at a time.
The Indiana Album, a non-profit organization, makes Indiana’s hidden gems available to historians, researchers, and the public by scanning, cataloging, and sharing historic items for people of all ages to discover and use.
Dig through your shoeboxes and albums and bring Indiana-related items to the Union Mills Branch, 3727 W 800 South, Union Mills, from 9:00 am – 12:00 pm on Saturday, April 6.
Subjects of interest include farms, businesses, schools, houses, churches, architecture, organizations, street scenes, transportation, bands, sports, volunteering, events, gatherings, parades, people participating in activities, people working, prominent residents, pioneers, daguerreotypes or tintypes, and great snapshots of everyday life.
“Many lenders are too selective, mistakenly believing that their family items or recent snapshots are not significant enough,” says Indiana Album Executive Director Joan Hostetler. “We not only document history with a capital H, but also the everyday person’s journey up to present day — after all, history doesn’t have an end date. We seek images of activities such as laundry day, farming, construction, church and club events, or going to the prom. Of particular interest are visuals of houses, commercial structures, or nearly any building as we plan to geo-tag the images and make them map searchable.” Hostetler advises that if you are unsure if your photos fit the criteria, bring a box for staff to decide.
Volunteers will look through photos with you and then make high resolution scans while you wait, or you may leave them at the Union Mills Branch in advance. The scans will be uploaded into the online catalog at www.indianaalbum.com and shared with the Michigan City Historical Society and LaPorte County Historical Society Museum.
Reservations are highly recommended, but not required. To schedule an appointment, contact Jessica Young Brust at (219)767-2604 or jyoungbrust@laportelibrary.org.
Formed in 2012, the non-profit Indiana Album has digitized over 22,000 items shared by over 460 Hoosiers thus far. To learn more or peruse their image collection, visit the Indiana Album at www.indianaalbum.com.