On January 17, 2024, the Library of Congress announced that six awards totaling nearly $400,000 were awarded from the Connecting Communities Digital Initiative through a program available to Higher Education Institutions and Libraries, Archives and Museums. The program is part of the Library's Of the People: Widening the Path initiative with support from the Mellon Foundation. The 2024 awardees will use these funds to create projects that offer creative approaches to the Library's digital collections and center Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic or Latino studies. One of the recipients is the Hoboken Public Library for their project "The Puerto Rican Experience in Hoboken and America".

“We’re thrilled to provide financial and technical support to institutions and organizations to facilitate a deeper understanding of their own materials in concert with the Library’s digital materials,” said program director Marya McQuirter.

Higher Education Recipients

Angelo State University ($69,999.06) - “All History is Local: Celebrating the People of West Texas”. San Angelo, Texas.  Angelo State University will produce a project titled “All History is Local: Celebrating the People of West Texas.” Using Library digital collections as inspiration, a team of students, staff and faculty will identify sources and write short articles that build connections between national topics and local history. Their work will focus on illuminating the lived experiences of Black and Hispanic or Latino populations in West Texas. The team will feature their articles and complementary Library artifacts in an interactive national map that will take learners through hemispheric and diasporic locales and speak to the interconnected experiences of these communities.

University of Houston-Downtown ($69,084.67) - “Discovering Afro-Latino Heritage: A Reflective Story Map Project to Enhance Student Belongingness and Learning”. Houston, Texas.  The University of Houston-Downtown will develop an interactive digital story map for their project, “Discovering Afro-Latino Heritage: A Reflective Story Map Project to Enhance Student Belongingness and Learning.” Their work will incorporate materials from the Library’s PALABRA Archive, Spanish Legal Documents and Puerto Rico at the Dawn of the Modern Age collections, among others, to explore trans-Atlantic slave routes focused on Latin America, the lives of enslaved Africans in the Caribbean, and the migration of Puerto Rican, Cuban and Garífuna Afro-Latinos to the United States. The story map will remix Library maps, photos, recordings, narratives, and other digital content to illustrate and articulate the lives of Afro-Latino communities. This work will also support teaching and learning in key target courses in Latin American and Latino Studies literature classes.

Trustees of Indiana University ($68,154.48) - “Connecting Collections: Indigenous Identities in Edward Curtis and Joseph Dixon Materials”. Bloomington, Indiana. The Trustees of Indiana University will work collaboratively with three local Indigenous artists to produce an online and physical exhibition titled “Connecting Collections: Indigenous Identities in Edward Curtis and Joseph Dixon Materials.” The artists will reimagine materials held at both the Library and Indiana University, focusing on photographs and wax cylinder recordings gathered by ethnologist Edward Curtis and photographer Joseph Dixon and prioritizing Indigenous perspectives, knowledge, expertise and creative capital. Their work will include individual artistic creations as well as both online and in-person exhibitions centered on explorations of Indigenous identities expressed within historical, archival and contemporary materials. The team’s work will also provide teaching resources for elementary through university-level students and enable audiences of all ages and backgrounds to see Indigenous histories and futures presented in new contexts.

Libraries, Archives and Museums Recipients

District of Columbia Public Library ($52,329.93) - “Documenting the Ethiopian Communities of D.C.”. Washington, D.C. The District of Columbia Public Library will collaborate with artist Tsedaye Makonnen to highlight the stories of D.C.’s Ethiopian residents across generations and identities and investigate the ways the local Ethiopian community and the District of Columbia have influenced each other. Their work will explore materials from the Library’s Ethnic Heritage and Language Schools in America project collection, specifically Elena Bradunas’ 1980s photographs and recordings of D.C.’s Ethiopian community. Using the second wave of Ethiopian migration as a starting point, the project will stretch back into the early-20th century and forward to today, exploring various facets of the Ethiopian experience in Washington, D.C. Inspired by the centrality of community gatherings in Ethiopian culture, the work will include three major community convenings; a series of oral history pop-ups featuring recorded conversations with D.C.’s Ethiopian communities; and an art installation co-created by Tsedaye Makonnen and community members, in which community-generated materials will be displayed alongside D.C. Public Library and Library of Congress digital materials.

Friends of Tijeras Pueblo ($61,366.50) - “The Ancestral Tiwa World Connected to the Present: Tijeras Pueblo in Context”. Tijeras, New Mexico. The Friends of Tijeras Pueblo will enhance the museum located on the Tijeras Pueblo Archaeological Site, designed to share the history and stories of the Indigenous populations of the Central Rio Grande Valley. Their project, “The Ancestral Tiwa World Connected to the Present: Tijeras Pueblo in Context,” will use Library collections to develop a digital representation of the museum’s physical mural and map depicting the Tiwa communities of the central Rio Grande Valley. Painted by Isleta/Jemez artist Deborah Jojola, the mural includes key geographic features, symbols, and vignettes of life in 14th century Central Rio Grande. The digital version of the mural will be accompanied by images from the Library’s collections as well as oral stories from the artist and Isleta elders. The project team will also create a digital zine combining 19th and early-20th century Isleta photos from the Library alongside those of present-day Isletans. The complete effort will help provide educational resources to local Pueblo schools and youth organizations.

Hoboken Public Library ($69,449.39) - “The Puerto Rican Experience in Hoboken and America”. Hoboken, New Jersey. Through their project “The Puerto Rican Experience in Hoboken and America,” the Hoboken Public Library will explore the Puerto Rican experience in mainland America, with Hoboken as a paradigm. Using the Library’s digital collections, as well as materials from the Hoboken Public Library and the Hoboken Historical Museum, the team will produce an interactive timeline illustrating the histories and relationships between the United States and Puerto Rico, with an emphasis on 1960s emigration from the island to Hoboken. The project team will also produce a website expanding on key events and cultural artifacts from Puerto Rican experiences in mainland America and exploring their lived experiences during the second half of the 20th century. To encourage cross-cultural community participation and intergenerational conversation, the team will also host four public events at Hoboken Housing Authority senior centers in celebration of the culture and music of Puerto Rico. The events will feature music from Hoboken Public Library’s expanding vinyl collection alongside the Library’s National Jukebox recordings.

Launched in January 2021, Of the People: Widening the Path is a multiyear initiative to connect the Library more deeply with Black, Indigenous, Hispanic or Latino, Asian American and Pacific Islander, and other communities of color. Supported through a gift from the Mellon Foundation, it provides new opportunities for more Americans to engage with the Library and add their perspectives to the Library’s collections. This work will expand the Library’s efforts to ensure that a diversity of experiences is reflected in our historical record and inform how we use those materials to understand our past.

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