Detroit Plays

“Detroit Plays,” is a collaboration of the WSU Libraries and the Detroit Historical Museums. It centers on a toy collection that encompasses over 5,000 objects, including mechanical toys, dolls, doll houses and their furnishings, toy cars, wagons, bicycles, toy trains, and banks. The project’s website archive will facilitate studies of social history through the development of toys over Detroit’s 300-year history, illuminating the daily lives of people of all ethnic, economic, religious, and cultural backgrounds. The online exhibit is being built in part by student interns in a program aimed at bringing underrepresented groups into the profession of librarianship by working with senior librarians in the fields of systems, digital project development, metadata, digital archives, and museum management.