The project has already reached a large audience, with select interviews garnering thousands of views on YouTube, such as “Colonialism: Religion, Class, Race with Gerald Horne” that has been viewed over 43,000 times.
Heights Libraries has launched a new subsite on its website dedicated to showcasing the videos, podcasts, and supporting documents of its Unpacking Our History project, formerly the 1619 project.
The creation of the subsite was made possible by a $5,000 Carnegie-Whitney grant from the American Library Association.
Unpacking Our History is comprised of a monthly discussion group, a monthly video lecture series, and an expanding collection of video interviews with experts in the field of history, law, and race, with the interviews are also available as a podcast. The Carnegie-Whitney grant covered the cost of creating a robust, customized database and website that better organizes and displays the 120 interviews and 11 lectures, and allows customers to more easily search for topics and speakers.
“This grant allowed us to create a more user-friendly interface for our collection of interviews, lectures, and other documents,” said Librarian John Piche, who created the project. “Each video and podcast was created in support of a specific topic or subject that the Unpacking Our History discussion group tackled. Tying the videos together and linking the article packets to them will allow patrons opportunities for further engagement and education, both core values of our Library.”
Piche interviewed authors and scholars who have written on the history of policing, race and the legal system, racialized medicine, western expansion and Native Americans, and slavery in the Americas. Interviewees include renowned historians Eric Foner, Nell Irvin Painter, David Waldstreicher; bestselling authors Richard Rothstein and Randall Balmer; and Cuyahoga County Public Defender Cullen Sweeney.
“Grouping the interviews and other materials together by subject will allow patrons an opportunity to delve deeper into the issues raised in our discussion group,” said Piche. “We’re also hoping the new site will broaden our audience.”
The project has already reached a large audience, with select interviews garnering thousands of views on YouTube, such as “Colonialism: Religion, Class, Race with Gerald Horne” that has been viewed over 43,000 times. And Simon Balto, a professor of History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wrote to Piche, “I actually used some of your interviews in a class I taught at UW-Madison this past semester on the history behind Black Lives Matter. The interview with Sally Hadden was especially useful for my students. Thanks for the work you do.”
The new site can be found at Unpacking.heightslibrary.org.
The Carnegie-Whitney Grant provides grants for the preparation of popular or scholarly reading lists, webliographies, indexes and other guides to library resources that will be useful to users of all types of libraries in the United States.