If you haven’t heard, 2026 marks the 75th running of the IU Student Foundation’s Little 500! There has been a lot of excitement around this iconic Hoosier bicycle race, which remains deeply rooted in student-led philanthropy on the Bloomington campus.
An anniversary like this brings plenty of interest and questions for the Archives about the types of materials we hold documenting the race. In short: it’s a LOT. In addition to materials that have come to us through other departments and individuals, the IU Student Foundation has transferred a tremendous amount to us over the years. You may have seen a recent social media post about the digitization of Little 500 programs (go.iu.edu/little5programs) and our ongoing work on the IUSF scrapbooks (go.iu.edu/IUSFscrap). That’s just the beginning, as there’s so much more you can explore from the comfort of your home.
And stay tuned! One of our archivists will soon highlight the afore-mentioned digitization projects and offer a behind‑the‑scenes look at the work involved.
Here are just a few highlights:
Photographs: There are over 1,500 Little 500-related photographs in our Photo Database — and that’s only a portion of our complete holdings. https://go.iu.edu/6W7wVf
Films: We’re fortunate to work with amazing colleagues in IU Libraries Digital Collections Services and the Moving Image Archive, who have helped digitize innumerous films and tapes related to the race. A selection is available through Media Collections Online: https://go.iu.edu/rW3esb.
IU students, faculty, and staff can log in (upper right corner) to access the most content, since we can only broadly stream items for which IU holds the copyright. Still, there’s plenty available to everyone, including fun highlight reels from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s showcasing IUSF activities leading up to – and including – the race. (The Style Show is so fabulous)
Other digitized content: Digital Collections brings together digitized content from across the IU system. Within the Archives, the digitized records and papers are linked to collection descriptions in Archives Online, but what’s especially useful about Digital Collections is full‑text searching for typed documents. A search for “Little 500” returns results from Indiana Daily Student issues, presidential speeches, and much more. At this moment, a search brings up over 2600 hits but you can use the facets on the left to narrow the results a bit: https://go.iu.edu/7p2SVj
Blogs: We’ve shared a number of blog posts about the Little 500 over the years – check them out to read about the launch of the women’s race, entertainers over the years, and more! https://blogs.libraries.indiana.edu/tag/little-500/
I’ll close by highlighting an item I recently stumbled across in the dark archive and published this week: an IU halftime show from 1978 about the filming of Breaking Away on the Bloomington campus. The short segment on the Academy Award-winning film that takes place in Bloomington and features the Little 500 race includes IU alumnus and author Steve Tesich, director Peter Yates, IU Foundation’s Bill Armstrong, IU President John W. Ryan, and our beloved Chancellor Herman B Wells. https://media.dlib.indiana.edu/media_objects/ks65jd44s
If you are looking for something specific and can’t find it – we know, it’s a lot! – reach out to the Archives, we are happy to assist! archives@iu.edu And if you’re attending the Little 500 Alumni BBQ, stop by the History Tent to say hello to the friendly archivists!
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