Research Ideas 2015 - Howard Wallace
Research at ANRL, by Howard A. Wallace Mbr# 4142, Life Date: ~2015
path: ~/Documents/Howard Wallace Research.txt
Recently I had opportunity to spend eleven pleasant afternoons at the ANRL researching the early days of Indiana nudist clubs in the 1930’s and 1940’s. For this research I rely heavily upon bound volumes of early magazines. In my experience, these magazines are the primary source for information from within the clubs during their formative years. A caution, however, is that sometimes those persons reporting progress of their clubs were somewhat premature, overly optimistic, or even prone to exaggeration. As might be expected, club shortcomings or failures seldom were reported. Because of the lead time between writing a report and its publication, circumstances relative to a club (such as closure, relocation, facilities, or contact information) sometimes changed before the information reached magazine readers. (If a club or camp met its end as a result of local authorities or community action, that likely was published in local newspapers, not necessarily in the nudist publications.) The ANRL’s ongoing project of digitizing all their magazines is making the process of searching for information in the magazines more efficient
Another source in the library for information on early clubs, and leaders or key persons in the nudist movement as well, is the collection of files maintained by the library. These files may include magazine or newspaper articles, correspondence, club records, club histories, brochures, other documents, and/or photographs.
Other researchers may find the wall of books on nudism and related subject matter to be of use in their studies. The library also has videos, binders full of club newsletters, scrapbooks, photograph and postcard collections, and other nudist memorabilia.
Pleasant, helpful volunteers serve the library during its open hours. They welcome visitors, assist in library orientation, help locate materials, instruct in the operation of computer and video equipment, and can make copies of some material if needed.
One challenge about researching in the ANRL, however, is that of being distracted from your primary research topic by other interesting subjects and material you come across.