The recording of the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative’s 2023 Awardee Project Celebration is now available online!
CCDI’s Higher Education and Libraries, Archives and Museums awardees wowed audiences with their projects and shared their experiences using and re-mixing the Library’s digital collection collections. Keep reading below for a brief synopsis of each project.
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University of New Mexico (UNM)
Through their project, “Remember the South Broadway—Albuquerque, New Mexico’s Oldest African American Community,” UNM created a digital zine and 3D model of a local public library to document and amplify Albuquerque’s earliest African American neighborhood. Dr. Natasha Howard, UNM faculty, remixed an oral history collection and local and community archives (created by South Broadway residents) with a range of Library digital materials (maps, photographs and rare books) to create the digital zine, which will be used for UNM courses, K-12 classes and shared with the larger public in New Mexico. We also heard from two students who participated in UNM’s project, Omid Shafigh Khatibi and Brayden Palmer, and showcased their project contributions.
“New Mexico is known as a tri-cultural state which is to say that it is Anglo, Hispanic and Native American. And part of my reason for beginning this project was to bring in the voices and experiences and more importantly the sort of visual history of African Americans into New Mexico.” —Dr. Natasha Howard, UNM Project Lead
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Guild Hall of East Hampton
For their project, Guild Hall collaborated with its Community Artists-in-Residence, Wunetu Wequai Tarrant and Christian Scheider, and the nonprofit organization, The Padoquohan Medicine Lodge, to support the reclamation and revitalization of the Shinnecock language. The project utilized immersive 3D, virtual reality, and holographic technology to create two immersive orations to be exhibited at Guild Hall from May 18 to July 15. The project facilitated language research utilizing historical texts and the Library’s collection of digitized books from the 17th through the 20th centuries, including the Eliot Bible held in the Library’s Rare Book and Special Collections Division. This work resulted in the creation of an online database which includes interviews and stories shared by Shinnecock Tribal members, a compilation of materials utilized to help with Shinnecock language research and education, and a community-generated video archive for the Padoquohan Medicine Lodge.
“It’s a little ironic that a tool that was used to take our language from us is the very same tool that we are using to bring it back. I’m just eternally grateful that we have this and that we have access to it. That it’s in the Library of Congress’ collections and we’ll continue to reference this specific resource in our work because it is the closest resource we have of the Shinnecock dialect of Algonquin.” —Wunetu Wequai Tarrant, Guild Hall of East Hampton Community Artist-in-Residence
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Boone County Public Library (BCPL)
For their project, “African Americans of the Kentucky Borderlands: Utilizing Library of Congress Collections,” the team reused the Library’s digital collections on enslavement and freedom-seeking in Kentucky to expand its “African Americans of the Kentucky Borderlands” database. The team launched a new landing page for their database that assists users in exploring the database. Adam Wiley, an intern with BCPL, presented on his experience of searching through the Library’s digital collections and gave an overview of the types of materials he researched and the kind of data he hoped to find during his research. All the information uncovered by Adam and other team members will be featured on BCPL’s updated database and in a new virtual exhibition.
“The first thing that we hope this project will do for our community is that it will give us a more complete look into the history of northern Kentucky and Kentucky as a state. We also hope that it will inspire other Kentucky based organizations to explore their records to identify and give voice to the long-forgotten African Americans and their experience.” —Liza Pruiksma, BCPL Project Lead
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Historical Society of Pennsylvania (HSP)
HSP ventured into a new digital platform, the podcast, and launched “Resurrecting Voices: The Philadelphia Black Experience,” a podcast that explores African American life in Philadelphia in the 19th and 20th centuries. HSP has recorded and produced five episodes that combine new interviews of Philadelphians and its centuries-old collections in African American History with the Library’s digital collections.
“On project outcomes and impact, the first is promoting local Black scholars and researchers as we know there are a lot of us in the business and we don’t get a lot of platforms to speak. So really amplifying the amazing work that is being done locally in Philadelphia and the Black scholars that are doing the work. This project also allows HSP to expand their digital initiatives. HSP has a lot of papers but its realty great that folks can just go online if they’re not able to physically come down and rifle through the papers.” —Stephanye Watts, HSP Project Advisor
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Houston Community College Systems (HCCS)
Through their project, “The Prisoner’s Experience in the South, 1866-1940,” HCCS explored the connections between enslavement, convict labor and leasing, and contemporary mass incarceration. Dr. Theresa Jach, project lead, worked with an interdisciplinary group of faculty to guide students in remixing and reusing the Library’s collections including photographs, audio recordings, and government documents, along with materials from Houston libraries and archives. Using these materials, HCCS students produced works of art, writing, music, and short films to further explore these topics. Examples of student work shown in the presentation include a poem by Kristen Aguilar entitled “Irene’s Lullaby,” a short film titled “The Troubled Man Sings” by students in a filmmaking course, and a song written and recorded by Anna Timm entitled “Your Time is Mine.” The students’ work has been compiled into a Story Map and virtual exhibition and will be used in the college’s African American Studies courses.
“With all of our [student] groups the goal is to show the prisoners as real people and not just victims of a brutal system which is usually how they’re portrayed, that’s usually how people study the convict leasing system and the prison farm system. This is why we’re using music and creating artwork, it’s a way of trying to give a more human portrayal of them.” —Dr. Theresa Jach, HCCS Project Lead
Want to hear from our current cohort of CCDI Awardees? Join us for our upcoming Summer Fuse event on Monday, June 24, for updates and insights from our 2024 CCDI Award recipients. Register for the webinar here!
CCDI is part of the Library’s Of the People: Widening the Path program with support from the Mellon Foundation. This program provides fellowships and grants to individuals and institutions for projects that innovate, imagine, and remix Library materials to highlight the stories and perspectives of Black, Indigenous, Hispanic/Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color from any of the 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, and its territories and commonwealths (Puerto Rico, Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, American Samoa, U.S. Virgin Islands). Learn more about CCDI here.
For more about the Library’s historic Of the People initiative, click here.