Unfinished Business: The Uneven Past and Uncertain Future of One Historically Black University's Archives—A Personal Reflection

Abstract

This article presents a perspective on how the restructuring of a historically black university's library and resulting closure of its special collections and archives puts important records pertaining to African American history in jeopardy. This article traces the recent history of special collections and archives at the Lincoln University library and expresses concern for the future of the materials held there.

KEYWORDS:

• Lincoln University of Pennsylvania
• preservation microfilming
• digitization projects
• HBCU, historically black college or university

Notes

1. See Susan Gunn Pevar, “Success as a Lone Arranger: Setting Priorities and Getting the Job Done.” Journal of Archival Organization 3, no. 1 (2005): 51–60.

2. See Lincoln University Bulletin 48, no. 2 April: 4.

3. Horace Mann Bond, Education for Freedom (Lincoln University, PA: Lincoln University, 1977).

4. See http://www.hbculibraries.org/.

5. As this article was going into publication, the notice about unavailability of materials, posted in 2008 for the duration of the library renovations, disappeared from the library website. To see the Web page before the 2007 library closure, after the notice was posted, and again after the librarian position was eliminated, see http://web.archive.org/web/20101107193834/http://www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/index.html. To see the current Web page, see http://www.lincoln.edu/library/specialcollections/index.html.