Indianapolis Center For Black Literature and Culture Enters New, Interactive Spaces

In the Indianapolis downtown, Central Library, the Center for Black Literature and Culture is getting a high tech upgrade. The best part? You don’t even have to live in the state of Indiana to access it. This past Tuesday, the CBLC debuted new interactive kiosks that allows users to to watch videos, view 3-D images, and learn more relating to Black history, Black literature, Black culture, the Black diaspora and Black librarianship.

Amira Malcom, a Philadelphia born photographer and visual strategist, serves as the project manager for the new interactive additions to the space.

“One thing I’m particularly excited about is the aspects that we’ve been able to 3-D scan … those are able to be turned around in 3-D space,” she told local news station, WRTV.

The Center for Black Literature and Culture is also debuting a new website that grants visitors the opportunity to “Explore the vibrant and resilient heritage and triumphs of those born of African roots.” You can browse historic artifacts, videos, photo galleries, and more.

In anticipation of National Poetry Month, the website currently displays, “The Poet’s Process: Circling The Daughter”, a deeper look at the creative process of poet, Etheridge Knight. Within the archival series, visitors can view the changes made from the first draft of the poem, to its final version.

“I think that the myth about a library is that it’s just about books and a library is about information,” says CBLC founding director, Nichelle M. Hayes. “For hundreds of thousands of years, books or papyrus has been the way we’ve kind of communicated that information. But now we have databases, we have programs, we just have a million things that we can do to share that information. This is a hub that can share that.”

The CBLC is currently home to more than 10,000 materials that archive Black past, present, and future histories for both children and adults. You can visit both the library and the center in Indianapolis on 40 East Saint Clair Street.