Updated September 10, 2024
Last week, the IU Arts and Humanities Council commenced First Thursdays for the academic year. The First Thursdays program started in 2016 as a way to connect students, various campus departments and units, and the greater Bloomington community through the atmosphere of an arts festival. University Archives typically hosts a booth at least once or twice annually, but we especially like participating in September First Thursdays because they capture the enthusiasm and frenzy of the new school year.
We also recognize that this can be a challenging transition period for many folks, especially those who are new to campus. Excitement, nervousness, trepidation, and homesickness are all normal feelings around this time of year too. With that in mind, we wanted to show First Thursday attendees that they may not be home, but they are welcome here at IU…a home away from home! In a repeat of an activity we did in 2023, we provided postcards featuring images from our photograph collections, each one conveying a “welcome home” theme. Festival attendees could fill out the postcards with their own messages and address them to family and friends. Here are the images that we selected:
After the event, we collected all 121 (151 in 2023) (!) inscribed postcards and mailed them on the attendees’ behalf. Last year as we prepared them for the post office, we were struck by the diverse locations to which these messages were headed. We created a simple spreadsheet to record the city and state, province, or country for each postcard address. We then used Google Maps to import the data and display each location as a pin. The whole process, from transcribing the geographical locations to completing the map, only took about an hour. We added an additional layer of data for 2024. Locations from 2023 are in red and those from 2024 are in blue. The result is a visual representation of the postcards’ journeys to places near (2 postcards were sent to Bloomington addresses this year) and far (Singapore is currently the farthest—9,570 miles from Bloomington). We think it’s a great demonstration of how GLAM (galleries, libraries, archives, and museums) can take a simple gesture–distributing postcards at a local festival and mailing them on the attendees’ behalf—and connect people through time and place.
See the map here in Google Maps – red pins are from 2023 and blue are from 2024.
The next First Thursdays festival for 2024 will be October 3, 4-7pm at the IU Arts Plaza. In the meantime, here are some photos from the September 2023 festival, courtesy of IU Libraries Communications!
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