Indiana University’s Lilly Library is set to receive a large grant to enhance public understanding of the role religion plays in public life.
The Lilly Library at IU Bloomington will receive a $2.5 million grant to endow a cataloger of religious materials and support a traveling exhibition. This grant builds on $2.5 million the library previously received to establish a curator of religious collections. The funds will be provided by Lilly Endowment’s Religion and Cultural Institutions Initiative, according to a press release.
“This funding will strengthen the library’s mission to preserve significant materials that represent the pinnacle of human thought across history,” IU Bloomington chancellor David Reingold said in the release. “This gift is a commitment to ensure these resources remain accessible to scholars and the public for generations to come. We are very grateful.”
The Lilly Library serves as IU’s principal rare books, manuscripts and special collections library. Its collections encompass invaluable religious texts such as the New Testament of the Gutenberg Bible among many other highlights, in addition to hymnals, manuscripts and writings that span more that 1,000 years.
These materials reflect a diverse range of faith traditions from across the globe. Scholars across the world have used the Lilly Library collections for decades to highlight faith perspectives and their historical impact, according to the release.
“The Lilly Library and its collections are a gem of IU Bloomington and a point of great pride,” Reingold said. “Important work is carried out there by the staff and faculty, which plays a vital role in the academic and cultural life of our campus.”
A permanent cataloger of religious materials will help expand interest beyond academic communities, the release says. Diane Dallis-Comentale, Ruth Lilly Dean of Indiana University Libraries, said special collections catalogers describe library materials so people know they exist.
“Without online records, items of major relevance to a multitude of religious traditions are physically protected but remain generally unknown,” Dallis-Comentale said in the release. “We are so grateful for this grant, which supplies the talent necessary to bring these extraordinary literary and spiritual artifacts to life.”
The search for the newly endowed cataloger of religious materials will be led by the Lilly Library’s head of cataloging and description Amy Tims, who oversees the cataloging, archival processing and stacks management teams. Lilly Library director Joel Silver said the cataloger of religious materials will ensure that accurate and detailed information about the library’s holdings are available to all.
“… we are immensely grateful to Lilly Endowment Inc. for providing the support to make this position possible,” Silver said in the release.
Tims said the position is particularly exciting because establishing an endowed cataloging role with grant funding is a rare and significant accomplishment. Without catalogers and archivists creating accurate descriptions, she said materials cannot be found, which leads to inefficiencies and sometimes a reputation for hoarding rather than sharing resources.
“Cataloging provides both physical and intellectual control of collections, ensuring items are described and accessible,” Tims said in the release.
Tims said that cataloging work evolves with technology and changing knowledge. In decades past, libraries and museums transitioned from card catalogs to electronic systems. Today, electronic systems continue to evolve and catalogers must balance technical skills with deep knowledge across a wide range of subjects and time periods, according to the release.
This phase two endowed position builds on a previous $2.5 million grant that endowed the Lilly Library’s curator of religious collections. The first phase was awarded in January of 2023 and endowed Sarah McElroy Mitchell as the Lilly Library’s inaugural curator of religious collections, whose mission is to make religious books and materials more prominent through targeted exhibitions, presentations and both digital and traditional forms of outreach.
Since Mitchell began in the position, religious materials have been included in all of the major exhibitions offered at Lilly, including “Receding Horizons: A Celebration of Astronomy at Lilly Library,” which took place during 2024’s total eclipse, and “Love in the Library: The Romance Novel in English” later that year.
Mitchell has also partnered with IU faculty to integrate the Lilly Library’s religious materials into various courses, such as incorporating medieval manuscripts into an Introduction to Christianity course. She has also been building towards an exhibition focusing on religious pilgrimage for fall 2027, which will be extended into a traveling exhibition thanks to this phase two funding.
“Pilgrimage spans numerous religious traditions, which will allow us to highlight many stories and to honor the different motivations and experiences of pilgrims,” Mitchell said in the release.
Admission to the library is free and collections are available to both students and the public. Library hours are 9:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Thursdays, 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Fridays and 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturdays. Through engaging with the library’s religious collections, audiences can learn how words, images and ideas regarding religion have been transmitted through history.