Congratulations to Kelly Denzer, Collections Strategist and Discovery Librarian, recipient of the 2022 Bloomsbury Digital Resources travel grant! Funds from this grant will be used to attend this year’s Charleston Conference in Charleston, SC. Bloomsbury Digital Resources selected just one applicant to receive this conference grant. As part of the application process, Kelly submitted an essay based on the following prompts:

• How do you see online products focused on the Humanities and Social Sciences evolving over the next five to ten years?
• If you’ve previously attended, what have been the key takeaways and how have you applied them in your current professional role?
• What can be done on both sides to enhance cooperation between librarians and vendors and make sure the relationship is maximizing benefits to both parties?

We’re proud of you, Kelly. Safe travels to sunny Charleston!

Sara Swanson, Assistant Director of Archives and Special Collections, shares: “As the Justice, Equality, and Community Archivist, Jessica Cottle collects and makes accessible materials about Davidson’s troubled history with race relations, providing opportunities for direct engagement with primary sources as well as the context to understand them. Her work enables students, faculty, and staff to grapple with issues of justice and injustice in tangible ways –  including through the collection of oral histories and the digitization of key archival documents – which often lead to difficult, but important, conversations. Many of the projects done by Davidson’s Commission on Race and Slavery and Stories Yet to be Told grant rely on Jessica’s extensive knowledge of Davidson’s relationship to enslavement, segregation, and civil rights; her Archival Resources: Commission on Race and Slavery research guide has been a key resource for both committee and project work.” 

Jessica’s efforts also extend to the local community: for example, when the Lingle Hut of Reeves Temple AME Zion Church, a long popular community space in town, was in dire need of repairs, Jessica stepped in to assist with efforts to preserve the historic landmark, including hosting a panel on its history for college and community members. As one faculty member said of Jessica, “In a moment in which Southern history has never been more publicly used and misused in the searing public conversation around Confederate monuments and colleges’ and universities’ history with enslavement, it is not an exaggeration to say that [Jessica] responds to historic and current inequalities with robust engagement and pedagogical possibility.”

Congratulations, Jessica!