 "Photo: DN PHOTO DYLAN BUELL")
Walking on the second floor of Bracken Library this month may seem at little different than in past semesters. Up the stairs and through the sea of bookshelves is the library's most recent exhibit, which focuses on nursing in Muncie.
Highlighting the long and flourishing history of nursing at Ball State and Ball Memorial Hospital, the exhibit, created by the Archives and Special Collections Department, features important people, documents and photographs related to nursing in the community.
Ben Batten, Ball State alumnus and former intern at the special collections, said he thought of the idea after stumbling upon a dissertation written by a former student.
The dissertation was by Mary Lou J. Holms, a nurse in the 1960s who later went back to Ball State for a degree.
Batten said learning about the individual people is one of the most interesting parts about putting together the exhibit.
"I make connections with people I research, and I saw she was a huge part of the nursing program," he said.
John Straw, assistant dean for Digital Initiatives and Special Collections, said the exhibit highlights the close tie between Ball State and the Muncie community.
Batton described a huge figure in the nursing community: Nellie Gates Brown.
"There is a little bit about Nellie Gates Brown, who was the legend in the nursing school," he said. "With women at that time, nursing was a role that they be a part of and she became involved in the hospital for nearly 20 years."
All items from the exhibit were gathered from the Archives and Special Collections Department except an old nursing uniform loaned to Bracken from the School of Nursing.
In addition, organizers created another exhibit called "Calling All Angles of Nursing: the Depiction of Red Cross Nursing," which features World War I posters of nurses.
"We have a collection of World War I posters collected by the Ball family," Straw said. "It's a complement to the nursing exhibit."
Straw said the exhibit's goal is to not only provide students something interesting and informative to look at while walking through or studying, but to keep students aware of Ball State and Muncie history.
"It's here because it's part of the university and to broaden students' horizons and be aware of history," he said. "We have a lot of those types of records and we want to put them on exhibit for students to know when they walk in the door that anyone can come in and look at the materials."
While anyone can stop in and look at archive materials, they cannot leave the office. The archive also offers more than 25,000 digital items.
The exhibit is running until the end of September on the second floor of Bracken Library.
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