Course Description
Length: 6 hours Format: Online Designed for librarians, archivists, curators, and others with an interest in special collections and exhibitions focused on the global Black experience, this course provides an introduction to the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. One of The New York Public Library’s research libraries, the Schomburg Center is an historic institution recognized for its devotion to the research, preservation, and exhibition of materials focused on African American, African Diaspora, and African experiences. Special collections materials are held in the Schomburg Center’s Divisions of Art & Artifacts; Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books; Moving Image & Recorded Sound; Photographs & Prints. Through a series of moderated discussions with Schomburg Center curators, participants will be introduced to the history of the collection, view highlights, and learn about how the center’s collections are built, maintained, and interpreted.Faculty
Cheryl Beredo
Cheryl Beredo is Curator of Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. Before coming to NYPL, she was Director …
Joy Bivins
Joy Bivins is Director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Before joining the Schomburg Center, Bivins served as the chief curator of the International African American Museum …
Michelle Commander
Dr. Michelle D. Commander is associate director and curator of the Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. After …
Tammi Lawson
Tammi Lawson manages the artwork and material culture collection at the Schomburg Center, which includes traditional African art, African-American historical artifacts, and artwork from the Harlem Renaissance, the Works Progress …
Shola Lynch
Shola Lynch oversees the Schomburg Center’s collections of motion picture films, video recordings, music, and spoken-arts recordings, which document the experiences of people of African descent. She is also an …
Michael Mery
Michael Mery is the Acting Curator of the Schomburg Center’s Photographs and Prints Division, which documents the history of the African and African Diaspora experience. He is responsible for the …
Advance Reading List
Advance Readings
Lapidus Center for the Historical Analysis of Transatlantic Slavery. www.lapiduscenter.org
Lapidus, Sidney. “Foreword: Reflections Upon Fifty Years of Book Collecting.” Liberty and the American Revolution: Selections from the Collection of Sid Lapidus, Class of 1959. Princeton University Library, 2009.
Lord Cultural Resources. “Putting Collaboration into Action: White Paper on the State of Black Collections Conference.” 2015. This reading will be provided as a PDF to admitted students.
Schomburg, Arturo Alfonso. “The Negro Digs Up His Past.” The New Negro. Edited by Alain Locke. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925. pp 231–37.
Schomburg Center’s Art & Artifacts Division LibGuides: Michael Cummings, Augusta Savage, and Getting Started: An Introduction to Researching Black Artists
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. www.schomburg.org
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, ed. Unsung: Unheralded Narratives of American Slavery & Abolition. New York: Penguin, 2021. [In particular, read the foreword, introduction, table of contents, and your choice of 3+ items.]
Course Evaluations
Course History
- 2021
Cheryl Beredo, Joy Bivins, Michelle Commander, Tammi Lawson, Shola Lynch, and Michael Mery co-teach this course online (6 hours).