Slocum Puzzle Foundation

Introduction:The Slocum room of the Lilly library continues to be popular with the 2022 visitors in excess of 10,600 people. With the opening of the library and other spaces, outreach events started up again. Allan is working with Andrew on how the SPF can further these events. In a similar vein, Andrew has started Tic-Toe and lnstagram channels, with videos of puzzles and Allan is working with Andrew on SPF support.. Collection puzzles donated:The Foundation donated 114 mechanical puzzles to the Lilly Library. A great milestone was achieved in that last year marked the completion of donating all the printed materials and manuscripts in SPF collection to the Lilly Library.Purchased puzzles:The Slocum Puzzle Foundation did extensive research of newly developed puzzles and purchased $11,867 of puzzles for a total of 37 items. Kagen Sound, the renowned inventor, commanded $7,500 of this amount for a single puzzle. These were delivered to the Lilly.Conclusion: The main puzzle event, the In

Slocum Room and Collection Synopsis 2022 Andrew Rhoda, Curator of Puzzles Lilly Library, Indiana UniversityIn 2022, the Lilly Library, and thus the Jerry Slocum Mechanical Puzzle Collection, began its first full year of operation after reopening in August of 2021 following the internal renovation of the Lilly Library as a whole. This was also the first year where the Lilly operated without any specific pandemic specific health measures in place for our patrons, which also moved us closer to what will be our standard operating procedures. After the library opened in 2021 the Lilly staff worked on outreach to the campus and Bloomington community, which I contributed to as the Curator of Puzzles. With that in mind, the reporting in numbers has adapted to the needs of the library in our post-renovation procedures. Our public galleries, including the Slocum Room, saw a sum total of 10,654 visitors through 2022. In addition to that, around 909 people used our new spaces available for study,

Specifically, I developed ideas at the end of 2022 to author articles on puzzles that were interesting but did not work in the short video format that we have been using for the reels. While there were other places that I could contribute that writing, such as AGPI Quarterly and Cubism For Fun, I was looking for a way to use that writing for a Lilly or IU Libraries official channel as well. With that in mind, an announcement made recently indicated that the Lilly Library reinstated its blog which would be a perfect place to contribute this kind of information for puzzles that are not as suited for the short video format but could also contribute more information on puzzles that featured in the puzzle reels. Of course, what I have learned from the process in selecting puzzles for the videos will play into the planning for any blog contributions that I make to the Lilly Library blog in 2023.As I mentioned earlier, in 2022 I was able to progress significantly in adding new records to the

This continued in 2022 as activities, including the Science Library's activities, returning indoors. The number of activities returning indoors was dependent on guidance from the Executive Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, Rick Van Kooten, who wanted any consideration for indoor activities to consider allowing for social distancing. He specifically wanted to avoid overcrowding smaller spaces, such as the auditoriums in the Chemistry and Physics buildings. This also applies to the Science Library, as it is an already small space and in previous years, we had hundreds of people packed into the library. With this in mind, we decided it was best for my activity to remain outside even with the slightly lower attendance that we had in 2021. There had been quite a bit of buzz around the 2022 Science Fest, so we were anticipating a near pre-pandemic attendance.That was indeed the case, as I had 384 total visitors to the hands-on puzzle activity at the 2022 Science Fest. This number of