The Hagley Museum and Library is taking the following actions to support research into the history of race and racism.
We are working with staff and our research community to improve our metadata and collection descriptions to identify content in our historical archive related to race and racism. This requires an assessment and appropriate revisions of all our collection information currently available online. We are also updating current processing and cataloging documentation to guide staff in their work describing our collections for our researchers so that the experience of race, and evidence of race relations and institutional racism can be more easily discovered.
We are committing collection development resources to work with African American businesses, trade organizations and individuals so that our collections will better reflect the diverse history of business, technology and innovation. For over two decades, our Collections Development Policy has included goals to build more diverse collections. At the same time, we attracted scholars engaged in important work in remedying gaps in the historical record. While we have made progress in creating a more diverse collection in some areas, we acknowledge the need to do better in collecting materials that document the African American experience in business and innovation.
We encourage historians, scholars, and the public to work with us. We are determined to make permanent and sustainable changes.
Below are links to exhibits, projects, interviews, and articles related to African American history at the Hagley Library. While we are proud of the work we have done to highlight issues of diversity in our collections, we look forward to doing more.
