Rooted in Memory Summer: HBCU Archives with Holly Smith

The SGA Summer Workshop Series: Rooted in Memory highlights the value of Archives and Preservation in Black communities.  This 5-month series highlights the importance of preservation from knowledge production at the level of the body to institutional repositories.  These workshops center work of HBCU archives, archivists, and Black Memory Work(ers) and will take place during the Summer and Fall quarters of this year and will be open to the public.

Description:

Working at the intersection of Black memory work, feminism, and Archives creates a unique set of challenges that demand community-centered and care approaches to the historical record. The official repository for the papers of Audre Lorde, Toni Cade Bambara, and Selma Burke, Spelman College has become the preeminent resource for research on Black Intellectual life and Culture. In this workshop, Spelman College archivist, Holly Smith offers approaches to preservation at HBCUs, tips for first- time researchers, and direction for archivists and artists looking for institutional repositories as a home for their collections.

Holly A. Smith is the College Archivist at Spelman College. She received her B.A. in History and Black Studies from The College of William and Mary, an M.A. in History from Yale University, and an M.S. in Library and Information Science from Simmons College. She co-authored the article “This [Black] Woman’s Work: Exploring Archival Projects that Embrace the Identity of the Memory Worker” (KULA Journal, 2018:2), and authored the pieces “Radical Love: Documenting Underrepresented Communities Using Principles of Radical Empathy” (Journal for the Society of North Carolina Archivists, 2018: 15) and “Wholeness is No Trifling Matter: Black Feminist Archival Practice and The Spelman College Archives” (The Black Scholar 52:2). She is passionate about community archives and archival advocacy related to collections for historically under documented communities.