The last few weeks of the Spring 2019 semester delivered
several celebrations of projects led by JMU students relating to local
Harrisonburg and Shenandoah Valley history. The Libraries assisted with key
components to four of them.
On April 24, 2019, folks gathered in Rose Library to view
the culmination of Dr. Philip Mills Herrington’s Historic Preservation course:
a project titled “Preservation on the Periphery: The South Main Street Project.”
The exhibition explored change and continuity along Harrisonburg’s South Main
Street, and it showcased research conducted by both graduate and undergraduate
students. This project also featured materials (i.e., photographs, maps) from
JMU Special Collections, housed in Carrier Library.
On April 25, 2019, Brothers Craft Brewing hosted an event celebrating
the launch of the Exploring Rockingham’s Past interactive website, with a focus on prohibition
in Rockingham County. The project is an ongoing collaborative effort to digitize,
describe, organize, and publish collections from the Rockingham Circuit
Courthouse’s archival materials, dating all the way back to 1778. The addition
of these prohibition-related documents to Exploring
Rockingham’s Past by Kayla Heslin (JMU M.A. in History, 2020) and Craig
Schaefer (JMU M.A. in History, 2019) will allow researchers worldwide to access
these materials. JMU Libraries, JMU Department of History, and the Rockingham Circuit
Court were main contributors to this project, with support from 4-VA and
others.
On Friday, April 26, 2019, representatives from the
Libraries were invited to attend the celebration and reveal of the new Furious Flower
Archive prototype. The
Furious Flower Poetry Center, housed at JMU, is the nation’s first academic
center for Black poetry. This website is the exciting direct product of
the Spring 2019 “Innovating the Archives” interdisciplinary
X-Labs course. Libraries received a number of shout-outs and words
of appreciation during the celebration and Head of Special
Collections Kate Morris was
able to eloquently promote the Libraries as a true and dedicated
partner during the panel portion of the celebration. Many thanks
to Grace Barth, Tiffany Cole,
David Gaines, Kevin Hegg, Kate Morris, Sarah Roth-Mullet, and graduate
assistant Mitchell Teal for the many contributions
of time and expertise that went into making this course and
website a true success story of innovation in the classroom
on campus. Check out the finished prototype at: https://furiousflower.org.
On April 30, 2019, Dr. Meg Mulrooney’s public history course
presented their Wordpress sites documenting various JMU campus histories as a
showcase in the Student Success Center. These histories include the 1970 Wilson
Hall sit-in protest, untold aspects of JMU Athletics, and others. JMU Libraries’
Kirsten Mlodynia lent her expertise to help the student teams create their Wordpress
sites throughout the semester, and much of the campus history research was done
in Special Collections. Dr. Mulrooney documented some of these presentations through
her Twitter, visible here.
As the Libraries continue to support students, faculty, and their research, more celebrations like these will continue to take place.