Sergio A. Mims writes:
Some fear
staffing changes at the college may represent a threat to the
prominence of the Center for Black Music Research and one of the most
expansive collections of black music in the world.
Columbia College Chicago
Staff transition at Center for Black Music Research a ‘slap in the face’
July 22, 2019
Some fear staffing changes at the college
may represent a threat to the prominence of the Center for Black Music
Research and one of the most expansive collections of black music in the
world.
Two employees who were listed specifically as Center staffers in the
Columbia directory were terminated on May 22 when their positions were
eliminated, and a research fellow and reference librarian who spent
about half of her work time at the Center resigned on June 12.
Laurie Lee Moses worked as a Center archivist until the college’s
most recent string of terminations and said there were 12 people when
she started in 2009.
“People of African descent are left out, erased and disappear all
over the place,” Moses said. “The importance is magnified even more so,
to the extent that honoring what people of African descent have brought
to the world is at risk.”
On her last day, Moses offered to help ease the transition by writing
out guides to the collection and cataloging what work was yet to be
done at the Center to then-Interim Provost Suzanne Blum Malley. Moses
said even though she used an extra vacation day to finish this project,
there was still more work she hoped to do.
Moses said her favorite part of working at the Center was the
“cultural crossroads” she would observe. She had even seen people from
Japan and Germany stop by.
“As you take people through the place … their eyes get bigger and
bigger,” she said. “[Considering] the whole world of what is out there
and what people of African descent [have] contributed, the earth shifted
a little.” Moses had even seen someone nearly moved to tears.
Monica Hairston O’Connell was the executive director of the Center
from September 2007 until August 2015. During her tenure, she said her
job gradually shifted from growing the Center to trying to retain
resources.
“[We were] basically arguing for our right to exist,” she said.
O’Connell said the administration had shifting priorities and has “failed to understand the specialness of the collection.”
The Center has an expansive collection with music ranging from
hip-hop to classical, which includes archived materials such as personal
papers, interviews and photographs among other things, according to
Assistant Vice President of Strategic Communications and External
Relations Lambrini Lukidis.
“This total collection count also includes material produced by CBMR
from its own programs, publications and projects,” she said.
The college will keep the Center staffed with library archivists, who
will assist researchers and keep it operational. Lukidis said archival
librarians will not necessarily have a background in black music, but
they typically have master’s degrees in archival studies. She said
“content knowledge can be developed over time.”
O’Connell said the collection has material from across the globe and is not easy to learn quickly.
“There is not really a way that someone with … [an] archival
librarian master’s can learn quickly how to make connections between
different documents and materials in this collection without having some
kind of training and understanding,” O’Connell said. “It is
disingenuous to suggest otherwise.”
Moses said prior to her termination she was still learning about the
collection, even after working at the Center for nearly a decade.
The Center became designated as a special collection in the college’s
library in 2016, according to Lukidis, who said it has not had staff
solely dedicated specifically to the Center since that time. However,
the college website made special mention of Moses’ and Janet Harper’s
CBMR specialization in their titles on the library page of the Columbia
College Chicago directory. Both were recently terminated.
But O’Connell said it is important the Center not be seen as a special collection “buried” within a library.
“We will spend the coming year and beyond thinking through how we can
best leverage this uniquely rich collection, and what resources will be
required to highlight its value to our students and to scholars of the
music of the African Diaspora,” said President and CEO Kwang-Wu Kim in a
May 22 email sent to faculty and staff.
Researchers can now schedule appointments with the library’s archivists to help navigate the collection.
However, as of press time, the Center has no available sign-up dates
for researchers after mid-September with none available in August,
according to its website. It will offer appointments in July on Mondays
and Wednesdays, as well as Mondays and Wednesdays during the first half
of September.
During her time at the Center, Moses said anyone could come in at any
time for research; appointments could be made but were not necessary.
When a Chronicle reporter and photographer went to the Center July 9,
a Tuesday, at 10 a.m., nobody answered the door. Calls, emails and
social media messages to the Center’s general contact line were not
responded to as of press time.
“It’s absolutely tragic … to not have a dedicated staff member with
the knowledge of the field … working in the world’s most important black
music research library,” said Rachel Barton Pine, a concert violinist.
“[It is] a slap in the face.”
Pine began researching at the Center in the late 1990s while she was
compiling an album of black violinists titled “Violin Concertos by Black
Composers of the 18th and 19th Centuries.” She said the album exposed
people to musicians and composers they may not have heard of before.
The album became so popular Pine received requests from students,
parents and teachers asking her where they could find similar music.
Pine said she could not have done the project without the help of the Center.
Pine is pleased the Center will remain open, and said dwindling staff is not a new issue.
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