Carrie Schwier

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Carrie has served in a number of positions at the University Archives since 2008, with an overarching goal to further the educational and research mission of the archives and make archival collections accessible to an ever-wider audience through both archival description and reference services. Throughout her career, she has endeavored to raise the overall visibility of archival collections as an educational resource, a site for broad research inquiry, and an opportunity for community engagement.

As Associate Director and Head of Special Collections she leads strategic planning to provide support for collection managers stewarding archival and special collections outside of established units within IU Libraries including description, digitization, and access. She oversees the department’s public services, outreach initiatives, and works with faculty to integrate the Archives’ rich collection of primary source materials into course assignments. To further this work, she has received five Information Literacy Course Grants to redesign courses such as ARTH-A Imaging Race: 20th and 21st Century Photograph, ENG-W350 Advanced Expository Writing: A Service-learning Exploration on the Rhetoric of Homelessness and Citizenship, and PSY-P319 Psychology of Personality. In 2019 she was nominated (and awarded) by two separate faculty for the IU Libraries Angel Award for her exemplary service “beyond the call of duty.”

Carrie presents and writes on campus landscape and architectural design, the impact of place-based learning on student learners, and teaching with primary sources as Open Educational Resources. Notable publications include the co-authored article “Learning in Place: The Teaching Archivist and Place-Based Education,” Archival Issues (recipient of the Midwest Archives Conference New Author Award, 2018),  Indiana University Bloomington: America’s Legacy Campus, now in its second edition (J. Terry Clapacs, with Susan Moke, Dina Kellams and Carrie Schwier, Indiana University Press, 2017 and 2021), the co-authored chapter “Mapping Tombstone Iconography as Data” in Engaging Undergraduates in Primary Source Research(2021), and the forthcoming co-authored article “Openness in the Archives: Educational Equity and Primary Sources,” Portal: Libraries and the Academy (2026).

Carrie is active professionally in the Society of American Archivists, the Teaching with Primary Sources Collective, Midwest Archives Conference, Society of Indiana Archivists, the Alliance of Bloomington Museums, and the IU Libraries where she has served on committees and in leadership roles. She frequently serves as a peer-reviewer for professional publications and grants.

Carrie holds a Master of Library Science with a specialization in Archives & Records Management and Master of Arts in Art History from Indiana University Bloomington and a Bachelor of Arts in Art History at Hanover College.