Collecting Stories from Underrepresented Communities: How to Co-Create a Community Archive at Your Public Library

Does your community have diverse stories to tell, but you are not sure where to start? Come learn how Tacoma Public Library undertook a project to broaden their existing local history collection by co-creating, with local organizations and partners, a new community archive that incorporates previously missing voices from underrepresented people of Tacoma. Hear practical strategies for undertaking the co-design process and learn about resources in the project toolkit to help you implement your own community archive. This session will be useful whether you have an existing local history collection or are just starting out on building a community archive. During this moderated panel, each phase of the project and its related resources will be discussed, giving attendees a comprehensive overview of the process. This session will offer examples and resources for facilitating the collection and dissemination of ignored and/or erased histories from underrepresented people and communities. It will offer both a theoretical framework and practical strategies for helping to overcome institutional and historical biases which inhibit the inclusion of a full range of community voices in traditional archives. The TPL and the University of Washington are working in an IMLS grant-funded partnership to initiate the development and collection of materials for the community archive that will be housed at TPL and to develop a toolkit to assist other libraries that are interested in developing a community archive. The moderator will provide an overview of the session and handle Q&A from the audience at the end of the session. The presenters from University of Washington will cover the principles and history of community archives and the intellectual basis for the co-created activities. The presenters from the Tacoma Public Library will cover the opportunities and challenges related to implementation and sustainability of the community archive. Both groups will discuss the development of the freely available toolkit as well as other resources developed as part of the project. Each segment will cover a phase of the project or describe resources generated from the project.