Community Histories

Through community collaborations, CML disrupts the bias of dominant narratives. Our community collabs platform local and regional histories within academic scholarship. We engage with local organizations and individual history-keepers to bring respectful attention to local memory, devoting scholarly care and resources to the preservation of collections. Our determination to elevate lived experiences improves scholarship by broadening the sources for serious research.

We are crossing traditional boundaries of "the archive" and academic orthodoxy. Amplifying traditionally marginalized voices enables more fulsome accounts of the past. We seek ways to democratize the how information reaches people. Our research and collaborations connect classrooms, campus, and community in new ways. Digital storytelling lets us widen the archive’s shape and make collections and the knowledge they contain available. 

serving as repository

Our datasets, partnerships and digital collection are the building blocks of the trusted community repository and collections hub we aim to provide. We are fast becoming a regional leader in preserving and disseminating community archives, oral histories, and cultural narratives. By offering secure storage and broad dissemination opportunities for local historical voices, CML empowers communities to maintain ownership of their collections while ensuring their accessibility for research and education.

partnerships

People and partnerships with them are in our DNA. As a partnership ourselves, between University Libraries and the College of Humanities and Social Sciences, we see how such connections spark intellectual energy and creative approaches. Community partners can rely on us for platforming of their mission and content, digital access, and collections preservation. We are also able to provide analysis and context that sheds new light on local knowledge and connects it to broader narratives. Access to our partners' historical knowledge, meanwhile, helps scholars pave new routes into overlooked and marginalized pasts.