Library News

Library Staff Work with CRRJ to Investigate and Make Accessible 1,000 Records of Racial Homicides in Jim Crow South in New Burnham-Nobles Archive

Last week’s release of the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive by the Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project (CRRJ) was a culmination of years of work by both the Northeastern University School of Law and by the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections.

Black and white image of a Black man wearing a hat and sitting on an old car. Text on the photo reads "Caleb "Picky Pie" Hill 28 Son, Brother, Father, Husband, Irvington Georgia"
Library staff have worked to digitize photos and records of racially motivated homicides in the Jim Crow South, like that of Caleb Hill, Jr., who was murdered by two white men in Georgia in 1949, with the help of local police. The killers were not indicted.

The archive, a comprehensive collection of 1,000 racial homicides that took place in the Jim Crow South between 1930 and 1954, will serve as a tool to shed light on the scope of racial murders during this time frame, their mishandling by local police and authorities, and their effect on the law and politics. It can be found at crrjarchive.org.

The project is the result of 15 years of work, with hundreds of students gathering 20,000 pieces of evidence — items like death certificates, press clippings, law enforcement files, reports from civil rights groups, photographs, and personal stories.

Led by Project Archivist Gina Nortonsmith, staff from the Library’s Archives and Special Collections, Digital Production Services, and Digital Scholarship Group then worked tirelessly to take that raw data and make it searchable, digitizing and cataloging it so that researchers can quickly gather information as they study specific cases or the general trend of anti-Black violence in the Jim Crow south.

“This is one of the most important projects that the Northeastern University Library has been involved with, and I’m proud of the many staff members who have helped to build this essential archive that documents a tragic, unsettling period in America’s history,” said Dan Cohen, Dean of the Library.

The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive is part of the larger Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Project, whose aim is to educate the public about historical anti-Black racial violence and failures of the criminal justice system, as well as to investigate those cases in which proper justice has not been served. It was founded by Northeastern University Law Professor Margaret Burnham, who serves as its director and recently published the book By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners.

Northeastern University Library awarded Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grant to study collaboration among decentralized research teams

The Northeastern University Library was recently awarded a $892,936 grant by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to study and develop effective practices for collaboration and communication by researchers distributed across multiple locations, as is increasingly the case in Northeastern’s expanding global campus network.

The grant will focus on Northeastern University’s “impact engines,” interdisciplinary teams that span two or more of Northeastern’s campuses and research locations throughout the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. It will fund two new library staff positions who will onboard and assist these research groups as they attempt to surmount the challenges associated with working together while physically distant.

The grant will also fund an independent project analyst who will collect data and survey information about the performance of the groups to determine which types of communication technologies and collaborative behaviors improved their work.

“Despite many researchers having to collaborate virtually over the past two years, we’re still figuring out hybrid and remote work on an ad hoc basis,” says Joshua Greenberg, director of the Sloan Foundation’s technology program. “We are excited to see what this focused investment in collaboration support for impact engines can reveal about the tools and best practices that best foster collaboration between staff on different campuses, and how those findings can be used to enable great research.”

The project will eventually produce:

  • A website containing detailed analysis on different communication techniques and collaborative models
  • Recommendations for setting up and supporting decentralized researchers
  • A formal peer-reviewed paper that provides details on the collected data and methodology
  • Multiple presentations of results at major conferences

“The Northeastern University Library is thrilled by how this grant will help us to synthesize research across our campuses, and grateful to the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation for its generous support of this endeavor,” said Dan Cohen, Vice Provost for Information Collaboration and Dean of the Library. “We also expect this project to provide helpful advice to other research teams and universities who seek to support similar distributed work using new technology and staff roles.”

The importance of this project was made evident in recent years, when the COVID-19 pandemic created the need for colleagues to work collaboratively in a highly distributed state. By studying the best ways to navigate these hurdles using technology and library support staff, decentralized research teams will ideally become more cohesive and productively collaborative.

Reading Recommendations for National Hispanic Heritage Month

Bienvenidos a Northeastern, and happy Hispanic Heritage Month! Initially recognized as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson in 1968, the celebration of Hispanic American history was expanded to a month-long event in 1988 by President Ronald Reagan, and is observed from September 15-October 15 each year. Here at the Northeastern University Library, we’ve curated a selection of recreational reading that highlights Hispanic voices, stories, and culture.

Visit the Hub on the first floor of Snell Library to check out the print collection, which includes titles in both English and Spanish. If you’re not on the Boston campus, enjoy any of the e-books or audiobooks linked from our virtual bookshelf! Here are some recommended reads:

The cover of The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas

The Hacienda by Isabel Cañas (2022)

This Gothic fairytale begins in the years following the Mexican War of Independence. Beatriz, left orphaned and homeless by the war, marries a wealthy widower and moves to his secluded country estate. But as she settles into her new home, Beatriz begins to hear voices and see visions, and to wonder what really happened to her husband’s first wife.

The cover of Violeta by Isabel Allende

Violeta by Isabel Allende (2022)

The newest novel from the award-winning author of The House of the Spirits and Zorro (among many others!) follows the momentous hundred-year life of Violeta Del Valle, from her birth in 1920 until her death a century later.



The cover of Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through America's Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez

Spirit Run: A 6,000-Mile Marathon Through America’s Stolen Land by Noé Álvarez (2020)

The son of Mexican immigrants living in Washington, Noé Álvarez left college to participate in the Peace and Dignity Journey: a months-long run organized every four years by Indigenous and First Nations communities, with the intention of fostering and reaffirming cultural connections among First Nations peoples.

Recreational Reads Available Through New OverDrive Subscription

Looking for your next great read? Northeastern University Library is proud to announce our new OverDrive platform, which offers a dynamic collection of e-books and audiobooks to all members of the Northeastern community. Enjoy curated selections of new fiction, popular nonfiction, classic works, and audiobooks.

You can explore the full OverDrive collection at northeasternuni.overdrive.com. We’re adding new materials all the time, so be sure to check back frequently! Northeastern’s OverDrive platform connects seamlessly to the free Libby app for iOS and Android, which allows you to place holds, check out books, and read or listen on your tablet or smartphone. If you’re a member of a public library that supports Libby, you can quickly switch between library accounts to maximize your reading experience.

E-books and audiobooks in the OverDrive collection are also linked directly from Scholar OneSearch, our library catalog, so you can do all your searching in one place!

Users are currently able to check out three titles at a time for up to two weeks, and can place a maximum of three simultaneous holds. When accessing materials on OverDrive, you’ll be prompted to log in with your Northeastern/Mills or NCH London credentials.

Northeastern’s OverDrive instance replaces our previous membership to the SAILS OverDrive platform, and allows Northeastern librarians greater control over the materials in the collection. This means that we’re able to respond to your requests! If there’s something you’d like to see in the library’s collection, just fill out the Recommend a Purchase form to let us know.

Here are some recommended reads to help you get started…

The cover of the book Persuasion by Jane Austen


Persuasion: The recent Netflix adaptation of this Jane Austen novel may have been a bit of a flop, but the original story is a classic for a reason. Austen’s final work is a romantic meditation on love and duty.




The cover of Book Lovers by Emily Henry



Book Lovers: This New York Times bestseller is a love letter to books and reading, and a romance between two very different—but maybe not so different?—readers.




The cover of Between Two Kingdoms by Suleika Jaouad

Between Two Kingdoms: At twenty two, Suleika Jaouad has just graduated from college and has her whole life ahead of her. Then, without warning, she’s diagnosed with leukemia. But this is not a book about surviving cancer. It’s a book about what comes after: learning to live in the world again.

Library Welcomes New First-Year Experience Librarians

Rachel Landis and Tamara Uhaze

This spring the Library welcomed First Year Experience Librarians Rachel Landis and Tamara Uhaze. Their goal is to help new Northeastern students with their transition to college research. They also plan events for first-year students to network with one another and familiarize themselves with the library and all it has to offer. Some events they are planning for this fall include a movie screening and trivia night. Keep an eye out for them on the library calendar!

Rachel graduated with her MLIS from Drexel University and previously worked in the libraries at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Virginia. In her free time, you’ll find Rachel reading thrillers, trying new restaurants around Boston, or hanging out with her two-year-old Beagle-mix, Leo. Tamara received her MLS from Texas Woman’s University and previously worked at The College of New Jersey as a librarian.  Tamara spends her time gardening, watching the latest movies, and checking out the museums in Boston.

Be sure to find the library’s table at Fall Fest on Tuesday September 6th. Rachel and Tamara will be there to answer your questions about the library and to facilitate a fun game where you have the chance to win a gift card. During Welcome Week, the library is also offering tours on Wednesday September 7th and Thursday September 8th departing at 1 and 1:30 p.m. from the lobby of Snell Library.