4.1 Working with Schools
Last updated
Last updated
From the beginning of the project, how the community can access and utilize the community archive now and in the future should be considered. One participant, for instance, suggested thinking about the center as a space for citizen researchers. To quote them at length, they said:
"What about thinking of users who are not academic researchers or ‘scholars’, that are community people that want to use this archive as a living force to bolster whatever, you know, whatever their claims are, or political needs are. So, I would love to see something that’s truly a living force that communities actually use, to perhaps write about their own history or ways I can’t even envision. I don’t know if there’s any archives like that, that really specifically tailored themselves to community use […] Yeah, that’s so that it’s not just sitting there for some researcher to come and use but, but for citizen researchers, you know, who are using it to advance the causes of their communities."
Participants encouraged us once again to consider the equitable accessibility of the archive through, for example, display of material in multiple languages or creation of a traveling exhibit that brings materials into community sites. In these ways, community archive projects can ensure that underrepresented stories are not only preserved, but also made accessible to and used for empowerment within communities.
Many individuals who participated in the project expressed their desire for the oral history or other content they were contributing to the Community Archives Center to be used by the community and wanted to learn more about what we would do to raise awareness and visibility of the collection.
Working with students is a valuable way to both increase awareness and use of the collection and to engage students in the process of documenting local stories to expand the collection. The project connected with students and educators across Tacoma in a variety of ways.
Through a connection with a project partner, two local high school teachers were put into contact with the Community Archives Center regarding oral history interviews created by students in their Ethnic Studies courses. Students had conducted interviews with their family members, neighbors, and other community members each semester but the projects had never been preserved and made accessible.
These interviews were specifically focused around race, identity, and stories from traditionally under-represented communities. Students had the option of sharing their interviews with the Community Archives Center.
Some students also took photos of the interviewee and prepared transcripts of their interviews which were also incorporated into the online collection.
Project staff visited the classrooms as students were planning their projects to talk to them more about the value of their projects and to encourage them to consider the topic of archival silences (or “whose voice is missing?”) when selecting their interviewee. This was also an opportunity to show students what their projects would look like in the online access portal and to provide tips and tricks for conducting oral history interviews.
Through attendance at an event hosted by the Community Archives Center, a Language Arts teacher at Lincoln High School reached out to staff about engaging their students in the project.
Project staff visited the class to talk to students about the impact of missing stories on the local history record. Through this discussion, students began thinking about how they could pursue projects for the Community Archives Center collection that addressed these gaps and silences.
Students went out and conducted interviews with individuals who they felt had a story to share they may otherwise be undocumented. They created reflection essays that described the person interviewed, the process of developing questions and conducting the interview, and their thoughts on the process. These projects were then made accessible through the online repository.
In February 2023, the Community Archives Center partnered with several local institutions to organize and host a day-long workshop for over 100 local K-12 teachers. The workshop was coordinated by the local school district and organizations involved in the event including the Northwest Room at Tacoma Public Library, the Museum of Glass, the Washington State History Museum, and others.
The event was organized around the theme of “community stories.” The project team organized the opening panel which featured individuals who had shared their story with the Community Archives Center.
The project team also led breakout sessions.
One walked teachers through the logistics of organizing an oral history recording project and how they can share those projects with the Community Archives Center.
The other focused on ways that the collections of the Community Archives Center could be incorporated into the classroom through a series of interpretive exercises.
Another breakout session featured presentations by teachers and students from Franklin Pierce High School and Lincoln High School who had participated in the projects described above.
Project staff visited two high school libraries over the course of the project. Small pop-up exhibits with items related to the history of that school from the Northwest Room Local History Collections were displayed.
Students had the option to record an oral history and/or to bring in an item to digitize and share. These drop in sessions helped raise awareness for students about the collections of the Community Archives Center and the value of their own story.
Release forms were developed in consultation with the teachers. A Student Work Release Form (see ) was to be signed by the student or their guardian to allow their class project to be shared publicly through the CAC database. Another form was signed by the person being interviewed.
February 14, 2023 [Press release] by Tacoma Library NW History
