Archives and Special Collections

Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive – WBUR Oral History Project Announces Lesson Plans

In the wake of the events that occurred on April 15, 2013 at the 117th Boston Marathon and on April 19, 2013 in Watertown, Northeastern University English Professor Elizabeth Maddock Dillon and Assistant Professor Ryan Cordell recognized the obvious need for a space where people could tell and share their stories with each other.  They believed that sharing stories from survivors, families, witnesses, visitors to the city, and everyone around the world touched by the event will speed the healing process, and wanted to create that space as a gift to the community. Together, they established the Our Marathon: The Boston Bombing Digital Archive, a crowd-sourced, digital archive of pictures, videos, stories, and social media related to the Boston Marathon bombing.  Thus far, they have acquired an archive of almost 10,000 items, 3 interactive exhibits, and 3 major collections.

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[April 21, 2013, from the Public Submissions collection]

This summer, I contributed to this remarkable endeavor as a Simmons School of Library and Information Science (SLIS) graduate summer intern sponsored by the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections Department and supported by the Project Co-Director James McGrath. In addition to exhibit building and social media, the main task of my internship was to create lesson plans for schoolroom use. Because children were affected by this crisis as well, the team at Our Marathon thought it would help the healing process for children to use the Our Marathon archives—to remember and share stories in the safety of their own classrooms.  Additionally, it can be difficult for teachers to navigate the complex questions young students ask and a resource like the digital archive can work as a great tool to facilitate age appropriate discussion. To that end, I helped create a Teaching Resources page for Our Marathon. This page showcases five lesson plans for Kindergarten through Grade 12 that utilize Letters to the City of Boston and The Copley Square Memorial collections,  and the WBUR Oral History Project as the basis for a teaching unit. These lesson plans are designed to demonstrate mastery of grade and subject appropriate Common Core Standards. Hopefully, these assignments will generate more student submissions to the archive as well as create a platform for an important dialogue amongst students and teachers. I look forward to reading about their experiences in the Our Marathon archives.

New History of the South End Highlights Northeastern Archives’ Latino History Collections

In her new book Legendary Locals of Boston’s South End, historian Hope J. Shannon highlights the role of community group Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (Puerto Rican Tenants in Action) in securing affordable housing for the South End’s Puerto Rican community in the late 1960s. Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción (IBA) began in 1967 as a grassroots movement against the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s urban renewal plan, which would have torn down affordable housing units in the South End, replacing them with new housing unaffordable to the existing residents. IBA incorporated in 1968 as the Emergency Tenants Council of Parcel 19, Inc. (ETC) and successfully designed its own housing development plan for a parcel of land in the South End (known as Parcel 19). In 1969, the Boston Housing Authority named ETC sponsor-developer of Parcel 19, and the resulting Villa Victoria housing development would become a model of citizen participation in urban renewal for housing developments across the country. The records of Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción can be found in the Archives and Special Collections Department at Snell Library, just one of a number of collections documenting the history of Boston’s Latino community. The Inquilinos Boricuas en Acción collection’s photographs have been digitized and are available online as part of the Boston’s Latino Community History exhibit on the Archives and Special Collections website.

Residents of Villa Victoria gather together

Library helps tell the amazing history of Northeastern’s Co-op program

Here at Northeastern, it seems like everyone is familiar with the school’s signature cooperative education program. Most have heard the facts about the program’s success with job placement after graduation and for many students, the co-op program was the reason why they chose to come here. Although most people know about how the program can help with their own professional education, few know the interesting history of the legendary program. The Fall 2011 issue of the Cooperative Education and Internship Association’s Experience magazine features the fascinating history of Northeastern’s cooperative education program with the help of Northeastern University Libraries Archives and Special Collections Department, which provided the photos, document images, book excerpts, and stories included in the magazine. The featured article in the magazine, “Reflections of a Perplexed Practitioner” by Michelle Clare, highlights university co-op programs during the Great Depression. The spread features documents and photos from Northeastern Libraries’ own Archives and Special Collections Department, and contains excerpts from “Second to None: Seventy-five Years of Leadership in the Cooperative Education Movement” by Joseph Barbeau, a professor emeritus of Northeastern. The piece consists of remarkable information on the history of Northeastern’s cooperative education program in the period of the Great Depression, including co-op placement statistics from 1929-1932. The photos from the Northeastern’s Archives and Special Collections Department are unique snapshots documenting the life of a Northeastern co-op student during the Depression-era, showing co-ops from the 1930s working at companies such as the American Trust Company and General Radio. The article includes a quote from William C. White, Northeastern’s Executive Vice President until 1968, who said that during this time the co-op program proved its “capacity to endure the rigors of the worst industrial depression we have ever known.” So, although the current economic recession may seem like a challenge to the co-op program, fear not. In Northeastern’s cooperative education’s 100 year-plus history, the program has gotten through times of hardship before, namely the worst economic crisis of all time: the Great Depression. If the co-op program was able to weather that storm, then without a doubt the innovative program will survive this national recession and will hopefully be around for the next century too. Read the publication and learn more about the Cooperative Education & Internship Association (CEIA) here: CEIA website.

University Archivist and Head of Special Collections Departs Northeastern

Joan Krizack, University Archivist and Head of Special Collections, will depart Northeastern University after 17 years since her arrival as the founding archivist. Joan resigned her position on July 7th to pursue a career as a freelance consultant. Joan leaves a legacy at the University of several hundred historical collections that document the struggles and triumphs of Boston’s African American, Chinese, Latino and GLBTQ communities. She has also received numerous awards; most recently the Champions of Freedom Award for her work managing Northeastern University’s collection of the historical records of Boston’s Freedom House and digitizing the Freedom House photograph collection. View the press release in its entirety below: http://www.lib.neu.edu/about_us/news_events/press_room/documents/JoanKrizackDeparts.pdf

Welcome Snell Library Co-ops!

This week four Northeastern co-ops have started working at Snell Library to assist in various departments through the summer and fall semesters. Here is a little bit about each of them: Kelsey Strout, Marketing & Events Co-op “My name is Kelsey Strout and I am a middler in the Art and Design program at Northeastern. I traded a small town in New Jersey for the big and beautiful city of Boston. I have had a passion for art my entire life and feel most comfortable when partaking in creative activities. I am working toward a BA in Art and Design and a minor in Business Administration with the hopes of becoming an event designer after graduating. In my spare time, I enjoy drawing, babysitting, going to the beach and baking.” Will Macowski, Graphic Design Co-op “I’m a fourth year Graphic Design major going for a minor in Sociology. Outside of my studies, I enjoy the fine arts and love to draw and sculpt. I’ve recently ventured into the realm of tattooing and frequently transform my living room into a makeshift tattoo parlor.” William Bratches, University Archives Co-op “My name is William Bratches, and I am a middler majoring in history with two minors in business and political science. Although Boston is now home, I am originally from a small town on the Connecticut shoreline. Besides history, I enjoy music, running, reading, cooking, biking, and recently picked up tailoring!” Mike Helly, DMDS Co-op Co-op student Mike Helly is a graphic design major at Northeastern University. Web design and book layout are the areas of design that he finds most interesting. In his free time Mike enjoys to skateboard, play basketball, and listen to hip hop. Welcome new co-ops and best of luck within each of your positions! We are so happy to have you 🙂