Muncie Times, Muncie, Delaware County, 5 September 1996 — Page 28

The Munde Times, September 5,1996, Page 28 Wisconsin project seeks to document history of African Americans

by Cathy Fleming Recording the rich history of African American publishing has been a journey of discovery that takes Project Director James P. Danky and Associate Project Director Maureen E. Hady into smalltown homes as well as longuntouched storage rooms of libraries across the country. The ambitious nationwide project, underway at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, will pull together for the first time a comprehensive guide to African American publications archived in the nation’s libraries. Previous bibliographies have been small or incomplete. Libraries have not always kept complete collections of newspapers and periodicals from the African American community. In Iowa, for example, project workers found several issues of three African

American newspapers, spanning 30 years, packed away in a black woman’s home in Waterloo, a town with a population of about 20,000. The newspapers, published locally in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s, were nowhere to be found in the collections of the local library of the Iowa Historical Society. Danky sees the work as remedying some of the underlying neglect of the African American historical record. “The historic bibhographic playing field has not been level. As much as we can, we are remedying that,” Danky said. “We live in a multiracial society. Fairness dictates, that library collections ought to reflect that society. Libraries can’t collect everything, but the decisions they make about what materials are collected shouldn’t be determined by race.” The national bibliography,

expected to encompass as many as 6,(XX) newspapers and periodicals, will be a significant contribution to African American history and research. “The lack of a comprehensive source which identifies and locates the black press in America’s libraries and archives has long hampered research,” said Danky, the society’s newspapers and periodicals librarian. “African American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography and Union List” will guide scholars and researchers to historical records and accounts of African American culture. Currently, project directors have documented more than 5,000 titles and expect to collect hundreds more by the time the project is completed in 1998. The project was officially launched in 1983, when

Danky and Hady began examining the society’s own extensive collection of African American newspapers and periodicals, which contains about 45 percent of the material available nationwide. Since then, they have traveled cross country to 25 states in search of publications documenting African

American life.

Collections detailing the lives of African Americans date from the early decades of the 150-year-old society, gathered as part of Lyman Copeland Draper’s vision of a comprehensive American history collection. Draper was the society’s first director. Wisconsin, where African Americans account for only five percent of the population, might seem to be an unlikely place for a national resource that ranges from single issues of 19th century newspapers purchased more than a century ago to contemporary black

music magazines. But the collection is consulted regularly by students, scholars and citizens from Wisconsin and beyond. The society, a major American history research center with 1.5 milhon printed items and more than a million microforms, continues to build its own holdings as the bibhography project catalogs the nation’s resources. The project has attracted more than $500,000 in grants from the Ford Foundation, the University of Wisconsin System, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Bassett and Evjue foundations. Besides making discoveries of previously uncataloged material, the new bibhography will tell researchers where and how to find materials. The completed work will be published by Harvard University Press.

Sega’s PICO Bus at the Indiana State Museum

INDIANAPOLIS, Ind.— Sega’s colorful, interactive PICO school bus will stop and visit the Indiana State Museum, Aug. 24 and 25. Fourteen PICO interactive stations will be set up in the auditorium of the museum from 9 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., Saturday and noon - 4 p.m., Sunday. Admission is free. Sega of America offers families a hands-on look at the award-winning PICO systems and storyware. Children will be able to experience new programs such as Disney’s “101 Dalmations,” “Smart Alex and Smart Alice” and Sonic the Hedgehog’s first appearance in “Sonic’s Game

World.” The PICO bus will also showcase creative, high-tech approaches to teaching 3-7 year-olds how to count, solve problems, match and use hand-eye coordination skills. Also at the museum on Aug. 24 from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. is the family festival, “Reptiles, Reptiles, Reptiles,” co-sponsored by the Hoosier Herpetological Society. Children and adults are invited to hold frogs, toads, lizards, turtles and snakes of all kinds. Admission is free. The Indiana State Museum is part of the State Museum & Historic Sites Division, Department of Natural

Resources, with 16 sites around the state. The museum is located downtown, at the comer of Ohio and Alabama streets, one block north of

Market Square Arena. Museum admission is free. Museum hours are 9 a.m. - 4:45 p.m., Monday through Saturday, and noon to 4:45

p.m., Sunday. One hour of free parking is available at the lot north of the museum. For more information, call (317) 232-1637.

A NEW DAY IS DAWNING... was the message conveyed at the NAACP convention held in New Orleans, La. in the keynote address given by Presdient and CEO Kweisi Mfume (a former congressman from Maryland). In his address, Mfume assured more than 5,000 members in attendance that the NAACP was not only back — but alive and well. Major supporters of the NAACP were in attendance such as (1-r) William Richardson, vice president corporate affairs, Schieffelin & Somerset Co., who hosted the dinner for the executive board. S&SCO has been a sponsor of this event for 15 consecutive years. Gertrude Richardson; Kweisi Mfume; and Warren Jackson, president. Circulation Experti.