Subscribe to our newsletter by emailTransforming Knowledge/Transforming Libraries Research Project Update
In spring 2017, the UCI Libraries was awarded nearly $500,000 from a prestigious Laura Bush 21st century Librarian Program grant by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) in the community anchors category for "Transforming Knowledge/ Transforming Libraries."
This three-year research project will explore the outcomes of undergraduate students applying what they learn in ethnic studies combined with lived experience in contributing to community archives.
The research team will partner with the UCI departments of Asian American Studies, Chicano/Latino Studies and African American Studies, as well as stakeholders representing organizations throughout Orange County, California. This collaborative will work to connect library and information studies practice with the ethnic studies curriculum and provide undergraduates with first-hand experience in building and providing access to the digital cultural heritage of the under-documented.
In August, UCI Libraries appointed Jimmy Zavala as the Project Coordinator Librarian for the research project. As part of his role, the project coordinator will oversee the project and manage the research, curriculum and digital product teams. Zavala will also establish partnerships between the Libraries and faculty from the ethnic studies departments at UCI and supervise the summer student cohort comprised of 15 students that will engage in archival projects. Furthermore, Zavala will instruct them on principles of archives and librarianship.
On the first day of classes this quarter the research team, consisting of Audra Eagle Yun, (Head, Special Collections & Archives and University Archivist), Thuy Vo Dang, (Ph.D., Curator for the Southeast Asian Archive), Krystal Tribbett (Ph.D., Curator for Orange County Regional History) and Jimmy Zavala, in partnership with ethnic studies faculty, administered entrance surveys to students in four different ethnic studies courses. The entrance surveys will be followed up by mid quarter archival workshops and end of quarter exit surveys. Faculty will also take a survey at the end of the quarter. Students from these and subsequent participating ethnic studies courses will be recruited to be interns in the summer cohort program.
The UCI Libraries is also home to the Orange County & Southeast Asian Archive (OC&SEAA) Center, which will play an integral part in the work of this project as a repository, learning, research and oral history center and a model for community-archiving.
For more information please contact Jimmy Zavala, Project Coordinator Librarian at Zavalaj2@uci.edu.