The Indiana Historical Society offers small traveling exhibitions that may be borrowed by local historical societies, schools, libraries, nonprofit organization and government agencies in Indiana. We encourage you to use our traveling exhibitions as an inexpensive way of augmenting your own exhibitions, educational programming, events, and activities. Click here for a list of all exhibits currently available.

Time Period:
Borrowers may schedule an exhibition for periods up to four weeks in duration. Under special circumstances the length of the show may be extended by prior arrangement.

Locations:
Borrowing organizations normally arrange for traveling exhibits to be shown at their own facility. However, organizations may arrange to sponsor an exhibition at another site in the community if permission is obtained in advance from whomever is responsible for that site. For example, local historical societies without museum facilities often arrange for traveling exhibitions to be shown in the county courthouse, city hall, the public library, or a nearby shopping mall.

Booking Procedures:
Borrowers may e-mail, fax, write or call the Local History Services Department to arrange an exhibit booking. Please have two or three alternative dates in mind for a specific exhibit when contacting us. When writing, be sure to include an e-mail address or a weekday daytime telephone number where you can be reached. The amount of "lead time" necessary may be as little as five days if the requested exhibit is not in use, but bookings are usually made from two months to a year in advance. Exhibits may be booked up to three years in advance. In order to serve as many localities as possible, we request that organizations schedule no more than three IHS traveling exhibitions per calendar year. Bookings are not considered definite until the rental fee is paid.

Rental, Shipping and Insurance Fees:
There is a flat rental fee of $100 per exhibit.

Checks should be made out to the Indiana Historical Society. This fee will be waived for local historical societies and historical museums. It may also be waived for other types of borrowing entities upon request. This modest rental fee includes delivery of the exhibit to your site, set up of the exhibit (does not include wall-hung exhibitions), take down of the exhibit at the end of your show, and the cost of shipping the exhibit to the next venue. There are no insurance fees at this time.

Security Requirements:
Security requirements are minimal: the site must be indoors, and it must be locked when not open to the public. Borrowers must provide secure storage for the shipping containers while the exhibit is at their site.

Publicity:
Borrowers are expected to publicize the presence of the exhibit in their community. Exhibits should not be publicized until you receive a written confirmation of the booking. A sample news release will be provided by IHS along with the confirmation. For some exhibits, one or two appropriate publicity photographs may be provided upon request. We request that borrowers provide copies or photocopies of news releases and publicity to the Local History Services Department.

Damage and Evaluation Reports:
If the exhibit is damaged while it is at your site, please call the Local History Services Department immediately. We may be able to arrange repairs while the exhibit is still on-site. After the exhibit has been packed and shipped to the next location, please complete and mail the evaluation report back to the Indiana Historical Society.

IN A NUTSHELL:
The Indiana Historical Society will:

The borrower is expected to: