Students and Archivists to Celebrate Collaborative Project

Students from New Haven’s Cooperative Arts and Humanities High School and archivists from Yale University Librarywill celebrate their collaboration on the Family and Community Archives Project (FCAP) with an event on Wednesday, May 28 from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. in Sterling Memorial Library’s lecture hall (128 Wall Street). The media is welcome to attend.

In response to the Society of American Archivists call for action in developing a more diverse archival workforce, twenty-one Yale University Library archivists conceived the Family and Community Archives Project to introduce New Haven high school students to the archival profession and the work of professional archivists. Over nine weeks, 113 juniors and their teachers in “United States History II” learned how to find and care for photographs, documents, and artifacts and learned how to do research using primary sources.

The students also took a tour of the department of Manuscripts and Archives at Sterling Memorial Library and heard from a guest speaker, David Blight, the Class of 1954 Professor of American History and Director of the Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition at Yale.

The culmination of the project, an exhibition in Sterling Memorial Library, will be officially opened during the event and will feature materials assembled by the students that will tell the stories of their families and neighborhoods.

Christine Weideman, Director of Manuscripts and Archives, said, “This project has been very rewarding. We want to thank the school administrators and teachers for allowing us into their classrooms and supporting our efforts. The students now have a better understanding of how the past is saved and its importance to their identity and that of New Haven. The archivists have also had the chance to interact with and encourage members of the next generation of archivists, history scholars, and family and town historians.”

The students’ exhibition will be on display in Sterling Memorial Library’s exhibit corridor (120 High Street) from May 27 until the end of July. It is free and open to the public.

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For more information, contact:
Geoffrey Little
(203) 432-8061
geoffrey.little@yale.edu

Posted by Yale University Library on May 23, 2008 9:06 AM