Indianapolis Public Library and Meridian~Kessler Neighborhood Association are partnering to create a digital archive of a vast trove of MKNA newsletters.

In this digital collection of past MKNA newsletters and future magazines presented by the library, you will see the Mission Statement of MKNA played out in articles on projects, issues, incentives and management. You will be able to read about positions and debates on land use, zoning, infrastructure, traffic and public safety, beautification, business, education, expansions and innovations, faith based partnerships and focus and the MKNA grant program. In short, you will get perspective on the neighborhood’s vitality, its civic conscience and active support of social needs and community development over the years.

Browse the collection on the Digital Indy pages of the Indianapolis Public Library website.

The digital collections of the Indianapolis Public Library began in 2004 with the Artifacts at the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis collection. Over the next ten years the Public Library Digitization Team developed the collections, adding collections including recordings of James Whitcomb Riley reading his poems, videos and photographs from the Firefighters Museum and the Indianapolis Postcard Collection.

In 2012, the Library launched the Community Digitization Project as an exploratory partnership between the Indianapolis Public Library, Indiana Historical Society, IUPUI University Library, and the Indiana State Library. Since late 2014, Meaghan Fukunaga has served as Digitization Manager at the Indianapolis Public Library.  Meaghan develops the digital collection by adding materials from the Indianapolis community as well as drawing on the Public Library’s own collections, engaging in outreach services, and redesigning the digital collections website.

The purpose of these collections is to provide access to digital images and recordings of cultural and historical interest to Indianapolis residents as well as students, researchers and others. The Library offers these collections to allow free access to digital versions of increasingly valuable, fragile and hard-to-use originals. These originals are scanned adding identifying information such as a title, description, and date to facilitate search.  Then the scans are made freely and publicly available through the library’s website.