Ardra Whitney: Week 5 @ The HistoryMakers

Yay! Today is my birthday and I am proud to say that I am not only one year older but one year wiser. Happy birthday to all the people celebrating their birthday in the month of July and go Cancers! Fun fact: director and television producer, Stan Lathan (MediaMaker) was born on July 8^th in 1945. Lathan directed numerous hit shows, including The Redd Foxx Show, Hill Street Blues, Miami Vice, and Martin. He went on to become the executive producer and director of the HBO series Russell Simmons Presents Def Poetry, and served as the co-creator of Russell Simmons' Def Comedy Jam. He is the father of actress, Sanaa Lathan, who has starred in films like Something New, Brown Sugar, Love & Basketball, and The Best Man. She also received a Tony Award nomination for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway.

This week I did a lot of editing. I revised the Library of Congress Subject Headings for previous interview evaluations I transferred into FileMaker Pro and I also reviewed and amended interview evaluations for HistoryMakers, Frank Lumpkin, Russ Mitchell, Zenobia Washington and Suzanne Malveaux.  In addition, I processed five boxes from the Special Collections Processing Project: “An Evening with B.B. King”.

My host institution conference call has been postponed for the moment; however Julieanna Richardson, Founder and Executive Director of The HistoryMakers, provided me with great feedback on my PowerPoint presentation (which will accompany the conference call) when I presented it to her on Tuesday, July 3^rd. For example, she recommended that I use clear and concise text, and add more photos and pertinent video clips regarding Avery Research Center’s facilities, collections and staff. Additionally on Tuesday, fellows met with Dr. Cecilia Salvatore for a seminar on the topic of reformatting and digitization of archival material for the purposes of preservation and electronic access. Her lecture and handout, illustrating an Open Archival Information System (OAIS) information model, reminded me of an article I had read about how two librarians and an archivist worked together to build a digital collection in the Archives and Special Collections Department at Colorado State University Libraries: http://bit.ly/LWCn5K. The article’s three authors, each with a distinctive role in the digitization project, use this experience as a case study to demonstrate the distinctive professional/technical skills and perspectives that each brought to the project— as well as what they learned from collaborating with one another.

At Dr. Christopher Reed’s African American history lecture—which was moved to Friday, July 6^th, due to the holiday— we learned about the ineffectiveness of the Reconstruction Era to disturb the racial status quo and implement a successful plan for the advancement of African Americans with regards to citizenship, land ownership, economic stability, education and civil rights. Dr. Reed’s lecture concerning the dismal failure of the Reconstruction brought me back to a statement he made in his very first lecture: “The only good thing about slavery is that it ended.”

An archives intern I had supervised at Weeksville Heritage Center, before coming to The HistoryMakers in Chicago, sent me an e-mail this week. She wanted to check up on me and see how my fellowship was going. I was very happy to hear from her and about the progress she was making with processing her archival collection on the Lost Jazz Shrines of Brooklyn. It is always nice to know that you had an impact on the people you worked with and that you have their continued support. Hearing from her, as well as some of my other former co-workers and interns during the course of this fellowship has meant a lot to me and I appreciate it.

Ardra Whitney
IMLS Fellow
Avery Research Center for African American History and Culture