Lavender Legacies Guide: United States: Indiana

The Chris Gonzalez Library and Archives
Location: 1112 Southeastern Ave.
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Address: Diversity Center
P.O. Box 441473
Indianapolis, IN 46202
Phone: (317) 639-4297
Contact: Michael A. Bohr, Director
Internet address:  http://www.gayindy.org
Hours: Tue: 5:30-8:30 pm; Sat: 12-5 pm.
Wheelchair Access: no
History
The library began as Michael Bohr's private collection and became available to the community in 1992. It opened in its present location in the Diversity Center in 1995. The center provides no direct financial assistance to the library.
Information about holdings
Printed material: 2,254 books, many periodicals
Film/Video/Sound: 30 videotapes of local & national gay interest
Photographs: 50 promo shots of local female impersonators
Other holdings/notes: Original artwork by local artists

Time periods/geographical regions documented:
The collection focuses on Central Indiana.

Significant People/organizations/subjects documented:
Complete runs of Indianapolis gay and lesbian publications, including The Screamer (1966-67), The Works (1980-1992), The Mirror (1985-1990), Heartland (1990-91), Fever (1991-92), and The Word (1991 - present).
Collecting interests
Accept new acquisitions.
Use requirements
Open to the general public.
Services
Research space, copying, reference assistance on site, telephone reference, and borrowing privileges for individuals.

Other services/notes:
Borrowing is restricted to certain books.
Indices, finding aids, collection descriptions
Online catalog: http://www.librarything.com/catalog/ChrisGonzalezLibrary
Cataloging of archival material has just begun.

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Indiana University South Bend Archives
Location: Franklin D. Schurz Library
Indiana University South Bend
P.O. Box 7111
South Bend, Indiana 46634
Phone: (574) 520-4392
Fax: 574-520-4472
Contact: Alison Stankrauff
Email: astankra@iusb.edu
Web: https://www.iusb.edu/library/about/collection/archives/index.php

History
The person who founded this collection – the LGBTQ Collection at the Archives of Indiana University South Bend – is Katie Madonna Lee. She started the collection in 2013, and brought the collection to IUSB in January of 2014.
We are the first such archive/set of collections in the area documenting the area’s LGBTQ experiences and history.
The collection is a part of the Archives of Indiana University South Bend.

Holdings Information
The collection documents the greater South Bend, Indiana area known as “Michiana”: St. Joseph, Elkhart, LaPorte counties in Indiana plus Berrien and Cass counties in Michigan. The time period of this collection is from the 1960s to the present.
The significant people documented in the collection are business owners, educators, activists, and drag performers in the Michiana community in general, and the LGBTQ community specifically.
The organizations documented are the Michiana Chapter of Lambda as well as the current Guerilla Gay Bar.
Subjects are varied – including, but not exclusive to bar life, coming out in the local community, police interactions with the LGBTQ community, activism in the community, community-building activities.
There are oral histories done with over 40 individuals in the community.
The size of this collection is hard to approximate. It’s around 17 bankers boxes’ worth of personal papers and ephemera plus digital files that include oral histories and photographs.
There are at least 15 bankers boxes’ worth of personal papers and ephemera in the collection which is only partially processed.
There are over 40 oral histories that are digitally recorded, mostly on MP3 and WAV formats. There are around five videocassettes in the collection.
There are a few newsletters from the local chapter of the Lambda organization (the Michiana Chapter of Lambda) in this collection.
There are several photographs – in both hard copy and digital copy.
There are some nationally-published magazines in the manuscript material.
There are clippings in this collection – but interspersed with the manuscript material.
There are various items of objects and ephemera in the collection – but interspersed with the manuscript material.

Collection Growth
The Archives at Indiana University South Bend is willing and able to assume curatorial responsibility for additional materials in conference with the Archives’ space and time constraints – and in communication with the Archivist, Alison Stankrauff.

Access and Use
Access to the LGBTQ Collection at the Indiana University South Bend Archives is via appointment with the Archivist, Alison Stankrauff – as with all the other collections in the Archives. The site is wheelchair accessible.
Services
Researchers use the Archives at Indiana University South Bend to access and research from the collection. The Archivist, Alison Stankrauff, assists researchers with the collection on site or via phone or email. It is possible to obtain reproductions from the collection. The Archivist, Alison Stankrauff, assists researchers with any audiovisual needs from the collection. Exhibitions loans are possible. The collection does not circulate.

Indices
We have some inventories for some of the manuscript materials and an inventory of the oral histories. They are in Microsoft Word format.

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The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and Reproduction
Location: Morrison Hall 313
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
Phone: (812) 855-7686 Fax: (812) 856-6063
Contact: Shawn C. Wilson, Library Public Services Manager; Catherine Johnson-Roehr, Curator of Art; Liana Zhou, Head of Library
Email: libknsy@indiana.edu
Web: http://www.kinseyinstitute.org

History
The institute was founded by Dr. Alfred Kinsey in 1947 and is affiliated with Indiana University. The mission of the Institute is to promote interdisciplinary research and scholarship in the fields of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction.

Information about holdings
LGBT material is scattered throughout more than 430,000 pieces of monographs, journals, magazines, newsletters, archival collections, film and videos, sound recordings, comic books, newspapers and vertical files as well as art, artifacts, and photographs.

Collection Growth:
The Institute collects scientific and scholarly works relevant to the study of human sexuality, gender, and reproduction; it also seeks to document changing cultural mores regarding sexuality by collecting popular culture materials. Both contemporary and historical items are sought.

Use requirements
Consistent with its Articles of Incorporation, The Kinsey Institute makes its library and special collections available to duly qualified students of sexuality, including university students at least 18 years of age, with demonstrable research needs related to human sexuality, gender, and reproduction.
Monday - Friday 9:00am- 12:00 pm and 1:00pm-5:00 pm. See website for variations. (New users should make an appointment; some materials available by appointment only.)
Wheelchair accessible.

Services
Research space, copying, audiovisual facilities, exhibitions, reference assistance on site, telephone reference, and Internet reference (email/web).

Indices to collections:
Online public access catalog (KICAT) to library's holdings. No online catalog for archival or art/photography/artifact collections. Finding aids, collection guides, and abstracts available onsite.

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Northeast Indiana Diversity Library
Location: NIDL is located in room B41 on the basement level of the Helmke Library on IPFW's campus. A parking garage with free parking is available just East of the building at the end of E. Campus Drive. Handicap parking is in the lot just South of the Library at the end of E. Campus Drive. Meters are also available in the lot just South but are only for 30 minutes. On the IPFW Campus Map look just for the Helmke Library or building 7.

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 5537
Fort Wayne, IN 46895
Phone: (260) 481-0783
E-mail: thelibrary@nidl.info
Contact: Scott Mertz, Director
Website: www.nidl.info

History: The Northeast Indiana Diversity Library (NIDL) is both a free-lending library of over 5000 circulating items and an archive of local and regional gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender (GLBT) history. The Diversity Library, with the help of volunteers, serves over 560 registered patrons who come from all over the Northeast Indiana region and surrounding states. NIDL is supported mainly through donations, fundraisers, grants, and pledges.
NIDL's claim to being the "Oldest GLBT Collection In Indiana" starts in 1978 when Kent Neuhouser offered to design a check-out system for two shelves of books in the social room of the Open Door Chapel on Leith Street. In September 1982 a gay/lesbian organization called GLO and Open Door Chapel collaborated to start a community center with a resource center. The Center was above the gay/lesbian bookstore called Rainbows of Life in a building at 305 W. Jefferson in Fort Wayne, IN and was christened Up The Stairs Community Center. Kent Neuhouser and Deb Overcash began operating the Up The Stairs Community Center Archives & Resource Library (UTS library) at that time with donations from both the bookstore downstairs and people in the community.
In 1984 the lease was lost for that building and for a year the Center was running out of the First Presbyterian Church. During 1985 when the Center found the property at 3426 Broadway in Fort Wayne, where it is still located, the Center filed for and obtained a 501(c)(3) or not-for-profit tax registration certificate under the name of Fort Wayne Community Educational Center Inc. doing-business-as (dba) the Up The Stairs Community Center. From 1985 to 1997 the UTS Library was in a small upstairs back bedroom of the Center on a more or less self-serve basis.
Early in 1997 Scott Mertz was approached to start an advisory board and work on reopening the library in a larger room of the Center. The new Library Advisor Board met on July 22nd and included Greg Kroemer (UTSCC Board Liaison), Scott Mertz and Mary Voors who was an early GLO officer and assisted the library founders in starting the library. A major goal for the Advisory Board and its policy development was to increase access to the 600 book collection plus archives through electronic cataloging, volunteer staffing and collection development. The UTS Library reopened in the newly repainted room on April 19th 1998 for National Library Week and by February 1999 the Library began circulating materials by computer.
The circulating collection includes sections of books for children, young adults (teens), and adults both in fiction and non-fiction as well as videos and music CDs. The non-fiction sections include arts, biographies, health, political-psychological-social, spirituality and travel. Through one donation in 2000 the Health section was upgraded not only to include AIDS; HIV books but books on holistic health, cancer, stress management, assertiveness and teen health. Periodicals/magazines are considered part of the archives and do not circulate -- scanner copies are available on request for a fee. The inventory and circulation of items and patrons are tracked on computer and a second computer is available as a catalog or for word processing. Books are loaned for a month period and CDs and videos are loaned for a period of one week with a dropbox available each day at least from 7 to 9 PM. The archives include an assortment of mementos as well as three filling cabinets of vertical file type materials.
The year 2000 saw the UTS Library networking in several directions: first the UTS Library became an INCOLSA member which was a cooperative of over 750 academic, public and specialty libraries across the State of Indiana; second the Library contacted and participated with local groups like PFLAG, Outspoken and at Pride Day to assure the library is a resource for the total community; third the Library encouraged sharing of resources between other gay/lesbian libraries in the region like Gerber-Hart Library (Chicago), Chris Gonzalez Library (Indianapolis) and William-Nichols Institute (Louisville) which resulted in sharing of a large donation of materials from Gerber-Hart which has passed down to the other two through the UTS Library. The UTS Library has started and as NIDL is in process of entering the archive holdings into an electronic database to improve access while also assessing the needs for preservation to those materials.
In 2004 the library was given a technology grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne to upgrade its computers and circulation software and bring in full MARC records for the circulating collection.  This added subject headings for the circulating collection to make items more accessible and easy to be searched. Hardships in 2007-2009 saw the Center and the Library struggling to maintain the finances to operate.  The library closed in March of 2009 and went into storage as the center closed its doors.  The board continued to preserve and find space for the library while thinking about the future of the center and the collection.
In the fall of 2009 the board was approached by IPFW Helmke to set up collaboration between IPFW and FWCEC Inc. to reopen the library.  This was in anticipation of support for new classes in sexuality/gender studies and existing women's studies courses.  In 2010 the FWCEC Inc. voted to concentrate on becoming a library and adopted the Northeast Indiana Diversity Library (NIDL) as its mission.  The library's collections were moved out of storage into room 180 of Ginsberg Hall on the Northeast campus of IPFW in February 2010.  NIDL opened in July 2010 in anticipation of the fall semester.  NIDL got a Facebook page; updated the website and added the circulating collection in a searchable catalog to the website.  In Sunday, December 19th edition of the Journal-Gazette, the Community Foundation of Greater Fort Wayne announced it was giving NIDL's parent organization a grant of $2,000. NIDL was also gifted a subscription to and all of the issues of The Gay & Lesbian Review back to 1994 for its archives and use by the students.
  The library was then moved once again from Ginsberg Hall to room B41 on the lower level of the Walter E Helmke library on March 11th, 2011. The Helmke library is in the middle of IPFW’s main campus with free parking available in nearby parking garages and handicap spaces.
The Northeast Indiana Diversity Library's greatest challenges besides on-going fund raising and securing volunteers is space, preservation and providing Internet access to our holdings. Proper storage, access, and preservation of archived items take more space and money for acid-free materials to extend the life of historically significant items. Programs to develop the NIDL's archive databases and to digitize them would be a large expense but would enhance the networking between other libraries and the Internet public. All of these challenges if met would greatly enhance the value of the NIDL's collection.

Library Mission Statement:
  The mission of the Northeast Indiana Diversity Library is to serve the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender community and its allies in the Fort Wayne and the surrounding area by acquiring, preserving and providing access to materials that embody the culture and history of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender persons, with a focus on items of local or regional interest whenever possible. Through sound management of resources our hopes are that the collection will contain the knowledge to dispel homophobia, encourage the exploration of diversity and promote personal discovery.

Information about holdings:
Circulating items: 5,000 books, 105 videos, 8 music CD's, 3 books on tape. NIDL’s webpage has its circulating collection accessible online.
Non-circulating: Nearly 100 feet of periodicals plus nineteen 54-quart storage boxes including many titles ranging from the Advocate to XY. Newsletters to magazines of various sizes and topics are included in this collection. **
Clippings/vertical files: - 11 file drawers and seventeen unsorted 54-quart storage boxes which include clippings, brochures, press releases, organization records from various local groups or chapters, and more. **
Objects/ephemera: - one 54-quart storage box of buttons, bumper stickers, t-shirts, tote-bags, mugs, bar coasters, ashtrays, posters, proclamations, photo-calendars, puzzles and more. **
Films/videos/records/slides/photos: – Four 54-quart storage boxes which include old colt films on Super-8, videos and scripts of locally produced plays and local bios in print and on audio. **
**These items make up NIDL’s archives and are primarily from the late 1970's to the present and cover the Fort Wayne and northern areas of Indiana, Illinois, and Ohio plus some southern Michigan but there are some national items as well. NIDL is in the midst of making an electronic database of the materials for access and aid to research.

Collection Growth: NIDL’s donation policy is governed by our mission statement and then because of space limitations. NIDL has a retention policy of no more than two of any edition for circulating materials. All donations are being warmly welcomed, sorted, and either processed or found a good home by networking or sale.

Access and Use:
Borrowing policies:
1. Patrons are responsible for all items checked out on their account.
2. Library privileges will be extended to anyone with two valid IDs. (e.g., a driver's license, school ID, or public library card) No age restrictions except for when borrowing certain age-rated materials.
3. Books and books on cassette/CD are loaned for a 30 day period. Videos, DVDs, VHS tapes, and music CDs are loaned for a 7 day period.
4. Magazines/periodicals are to be used in-house only see staff for article reproduction.
5. New patrons are limited to 2 books the first 30 days. Established patrons are limited to 5 items at a time per person.
Hours: Evenings: Sunday, Wednesday & Thursday 7:00-10:00 p.m. *
Daytimes: Tuesday & Friday 12:00 Noon-3:00 p.m.
Other times by appointment call (260) 481-0783.
*Closed Sundays during summer.
Site is wheelchair accessible.

Services:
Research space
Reference assistance on site
Telephone reference
Internet reference (e-mail/web)
Copying services
Audiovisual facilities - limited
Borrowing privileges for individuals - Yes, for the circulating collection.

Indices to the collections: NIDL has online catalogs terminals (OPAC) to the circulating materials in the library and that same collection searchable on our NIDL.info website. The archives database has been started and only available with assistance from staff until it is further along.

Updating Collection Descriptions: NIDL’s website also contains a blog which is used to update the public as to group meetings, community events, library events, and recent additions to our collection as well as recent finds in our own collection. The blog is added to usually monthly or more often as things arise. NIDL is also on Facebook.

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