The Indiana University Libraries will lead a monthlong series of events to highlight the variety of unique research collections in and around Bloomington, Ind.

Featured speakers and panelists, including several IU faculty members, will stress the importance of primary resources in how they have shaped our understanding of local events and continue to inform and entertain scholars, history buffs, genealogists, and community members curious about their own history or hometown.

Primary resources—particularly archives and special collections—provide researchers firsthand evidence about a person, event, or object. Personal correspondence and diaries, photographs, newspaper ads and stories, works of art, and speeches are all primary resources.

Bloomington Mayor Mark Kruzan will proclaim October to be "Archives and Special Collections Month" at the kickoff event on Tuesday, October 3 at 6 p.m. at the Herman B Wells Library. At the event, IU professor Jim Capshew, author of an upcoming biography of Wells to be published by the IU Press, will explain how primary materials increased his understanding of the university chancellor and are helping shape his definitive portrait.

Special guest Wes Cowan, from the popular PBS television series History Detectives and Antiques Roadshow, will discuss his contributions to those programs and how primary research materials help him separate facts from myth. Cowan speaks at the Indiana Memorial Union on October 12 at 4 p.m.

"Libraries have a long and respected history of providing diverse kinds information," says Patricia Steele, Ruth Lilly Interim Dean of University Libraries. "We're showcasing some of the collections that are unique to IU and to Bloomington. They're materials no one else can offer."

For a full list of events go to: www.indiana.edu/~libevent. All events are free and open to the public.

The monthlong celebration is a partnership of the IU Libraries and groups including the Monroe County History Center, the Monroe County Public Library and their friends, the student chapter of the IU Society of American Archivists, the Friends of the Lilly Library, the IU Press, and WTIU.