Reflections from California Rare Book School: Developing and Administering African American Resources

One of my mottos concerning scholarships and professional development opportunities is "Apply, apply, apply, can't win you don't try, if you don't win you're overqualified". It may seem a bit arrogant but it gets to the point.

I don't remember how I originally found out about the Developing African American Collections course at the California Rare Book School but I applied and was awarded the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) Laura Bush 21st Century Librarian Scholarship to attend, as well as a stipend for travel and housing. The class hadn't been offered in 10 years!


The Fashionable Bunch at the Huntington

CAAM Rolled out the Red Carpet

Weeks later, I am still very inspired by the work of my archives and special library colleagues and professors (#sistersinthestacks) August 3-7, in the Developing and Administering African American Resources course at the California Rare Book School at UCLA. The class taught by Randall K. Burkett (Emory University Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library) and Tamar Evangelestia-Doughtery (Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and Black Metropolis Research Consortium)surveyed case studies of historic black archives in relation to the present state of such institutions. We also explored both traditional and innovative approaches to building African American research collections. The final focus was on building digital collections and using those resources to create connections with researchers with an emphasis on outreach, fundraising and donor relations.
The goals for me were to find ways of providing access to the resources already held at Payne. I wanted more information about developing grant funded projects, and exploring opportunities for collaboration among institutions. The instructors gave us some great background information on African American history and culture as reflected in major collecting institutions such as Emory University, Amistad Research Center at Tulane University, Schomburg Research Center of the New York Public Library, Howard University’s Moorland-Spingarn, and Spelman College.

Learning About African American History in  Collective Memory 

Randall and Dalena, UCLA Special Collections Librarian 

Parker and I bidding for the James Baldwin Papers as Emory University

Our effortlessly fly professor Tamar

Looking at Plantation records form the 1700's at the Mayme Clayton Library

Curator's Talk at the Huntington Library featuring the papers of Octavia Butler

We discussed effective strategies for collecting family papers that can often start with one family member that can lead to developing relationships with not only the other family members but also with friends and their associates who can observe the care and commitment to the original donor’s papers. This “seeding” of donor relations is something to consider in Payne's collecting practices especially since we are the denominational repository for the AME Church.  Do we honestly have the capacity to ingest papers from the denomination given our small archival space without renovating the entire building? Prominent clergy papers housed at Payne in the future can be used as “bait.”

Our discussion of ethical collecting concerned the real problem and something that I am very concerned about, the commodification of papers that has occurred in archives. How do small African American collections compete with the Emory University’s MARBL (which has a fair amount of AME Materials) or UT Austin’s Ransom Center, seemingly endless amounts of money to purchase collections, including collections that would be more appropriate to other collections? We don’t want to lose potential AME collections to larger institutions. This led into a discussion of some of the collections housed in these repositories and others that were competitively acquired. Part of this discussion concerned changing the narrative of African American collections that often are not seen as on par with other materials related to American history. Pushing against this notion has been an uphill battle for many of us in the archival world, but it needs to be taken as seriously as other resources. We need to provide comparable access to these holdings, build these collections at a similar pace to other holdings, and use them in our research, scholarship, and teaching.

One of the best takeaways from the course was the major gifts and donor relations handout created by the Schomburg Center for Research and Black Culture (Please see attached). As I move forward with drafting a strategic plan, fundraising and donor acquisitions are crucial to supporting the future of Payne Digital Archive and physical collection in the Ransom Library I see the need a similar protocol for Payne. I shared examples of thank you letters to donors with Payne's Development Office.

The North Carolina Library Collective #Duke #UNC

We were also given contact information for the grant officers at Mellon, The Institute of Museum of Library Services, The Gates and Ford Foundations and the National Endowment for the Humanities and permission to use our professors as references when we reach out to introduce ourselves. Clearly we were all excited about creating relationships and collaborating with other institutions on major grants and acquisitions. Randall and Tamar are also reviewers for a number of philanthropic library organizations and shared with us a list of projects from Historically Black Colleges and why they were not funded for one reason or another. 

Course Takeaways:

• Tamar's world view shattering lecture on African American History in Collective Memory (What should be remembered or forgotten?). The talk offered an analysis of common narratives in African American history and discussed collective amnesia (who is silenced?) and competing and contested memories.
• Black don't crack. This well known fact could be why colleagues at the Huntington Library neglected to ask us about ourselves and spoke to us as if we were students and not their contemporaries.
• The California African American Museum has amazing exhibitions, a library including a stellar rare book collection and fly librarian who holds no punches
• UCLA Special Collections and the Bunch library have great collections on the political activism of African American student groups at UCLA from the 1960's
• The course syllabus and recommended readings=flames and mo' fire
• The Mayme Clayton Library and Museum is a treasure trove of African American history and culture but unfortunately is suffering from a lack of funding and library trained leadership
• There are some amazing Black women archivists doing important, creative work in special collections across the country. Brothers Parker and Randall along with Sister Anne Coco (get into that name will you?) are putting on for African American Historical Collections as well!  

If the class is offered in the near future apply, apply, apply!