HF14: Through the Human Lens: Centering Collective Work in Libraries, Archives, Special Collections, and Museums

Collaborative Goals

Libraries, archives, special collections, and museums—and educational initiatives centered in engagement with these unique cultural institutions—are often the sites called upon to take on experiential learning for the campus and broader community(s) when it comes to teaching and research in any facet of the humanities by directly engaging with the human historical record. Humanities to us working in these spaces ranges vastly in material format, time, space, and perspective. We not only have to be apt in any of these materials and their historical context but make them engageable to any and all who are interested in them—spanning any areas of disconnect in experience, knowledge, access, and so on. When we describe the work we do as providing the public access to human culture through history, it encompasses every facet of what it means to create means of accessing for all now and for generations to come. This work is often undertaken by us against formidable obstacles, which in our current historical moment are exacerbated through a myriad of socio-economic-political forces that are at times in direct opposition to what this work requires. This is the cost of creating and maintaining access to the human record now and for the future.

Our working group aims to provide professional development and skill-building opportunities for our community of praxis among the Central New York Humanities Corridor institutions for those who support, develop, and carry out these initiatives in our daily work. Activities of the working group include regular occasions for members to share and discuss resources and learn from each other’s experiences with this work. Group members can also attend workshops and presentations given by invited experts to help us all further develop our skills and knowledge related to experiential learning and creative-critical methods for humanities-focused education for all.