Event for BMRC members: Collection Diversification and Community Engagement Series

The BMRC is proud to present its Collection Diversification and Community Engagement Series! In November 2020, we had the pleasure of hosting a virtual panel featuring representatives from some of our very own member institutions at our Collection Diversification and Community Engagement Panel. The recording of this wonderful panel will be available on our YouTube page soon.

Thanks to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the BMRC will be hosting three more virtual events to discuss the issues that archival repositories face in working with the communities they are responsible for and how to build strong relationships between them. Often, these challenges are a result of long-standing issues with trust between an institution and the community it is in. While revising connections between an institution and the neighborhoods, organizations, and people surrounding it is critical, archival repositories have a unique place in this revision as stewards of historical documentation. For this reason, the BMRC has decided to host this virtual event series on these important topics!

We are delighted to continue this series with the announcement of its final three events. Please see the details about each one below, share widely, and feel free to email me with any questions or concerns you may have at tcalvin@uchicago.edu!

Cultural Diversity Competency Webinar

January 28th, 2021 from 2pm-6pm CST

Helen Wong Smith, Archivist for University Records from University of Hawai’i at Mānoa, will facilitate a half-day webinar for our member institutions on Cultural Diversity Competency. This webinar will help our members understand Cultural Diversity Competency in libraries, museums, and archives, biases related to community engagement and collection diversification, and building relationships with local communities based on empathy. There is no limit on participant registration for staff from our member institutions.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/qC4FbdotcrroWX1Z9

Collection Diversification Workshop

March 29th and 30th, 2021 from 9am-4pm CST

Facilitated by Rebecca Hankins, Africana Resources Librarian at Texas A&M University, this workshop on collection diversification will focus on creating strategies for building mutually beneficial relationships between archival repositories and the communities they serve. By providing infrastructure for community collections to be properly preserved, our members can play an important part in the management of their community’s legacy through respectful, equitable partnerships and community outreach. While these partnerships may lead to donations of archival collections for some of our members, respecting the community’s priorities and boundaries is always at the center of the BMRC’s mission of connecting those who seek to document, share, understand, and preserve Black experiences. By exploring strategies for providing archival resources to communities, from post-custodial agreements to donor education and more, our members will learn how to create strategic plans that ensure they are successfully working towards the BMRC’s vision of being essential to promoting the discovery, preservation, and use of Black historical collections. There is no limit on participant registration for staff from our member institutions.

Note: Since this workshop is two full days, we are giving the option for participants to join us for either the morning or afternoon sessions as there will be a break for lunch at 12 noon. You may wish to coordinate amongst your institution’s staff members so some may participate in the morning and others in the afternoon. This way, you can come together afterwards and share all that you’ve learned and get the most out of the workshop! Feel free to let me know if you have any questions or concerns about this tcalvin@uchicago.edu.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/kpLqpXrciZSvgQZX6

Post-Series Discussion

April 16th, 2021 from 2pm-3pm CST

Finally, I will be facilitating a discussion that will provide us with an opportunity to talk about what we learned throughout the Collection Diversification and Community Engagement Series, as well as any lingering questions we have. We will also discuss our planning for actionable next steps to improve our institution's collection diversification and community engagement strategies.

Registration form: https://forms.gle/8Lt6vd3oMJUaN4Yk6

There is a .PDF file of this flyer available here: Collection Diversification and Community Engagement Series Poster