{"id":148,"date":"2017-11-14T16:21:22","date_gmt":"2017-11-14T21:21:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=148"},"modified":"2017-11-15T09:48:38","modified_gmt":"2017-11-15T14:48:38","slug":"meet-dr-kenvi-phillips-the-first-curator-of-race-and-ethnicity-at-the-schlesinger-library","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/?p=148","title":{"rendered":"Meet Dr. Kenvi Phillips, the first curator of Race and Ethnicity at the Schlesinger Library."},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Dr. Kenvi Phillips, curator of Race and Ethnicity at the Schlesinger Library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

by Sony Prosper<\/em><\/p>\n

I recently met with Dr. Kenvi Phillips to discuss advocacy and outreach in the context of a curator working in a research library. Kenvi comes from a rich cultural heritage and history background. She received a bachelor\u2019s degree in History. She then earned a master\u2019s degree in Public history and doctorate in history from Howard University in Washington D.C. She has worked in the Anheuser-Busch tour center, the National Park Service\/National Archives for Black Women, the History Factory, the Moorland Spingarn Research Center, and now works as the first curator of Race and Ethnicity at the Schlesinger Library.<\/p>\n

Located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Schlesinger Library is a research library at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, Harvard University. The library\u2019s holdings date from the founding of the United States to the present and include more than 3200 manuscript collections, 100,000 volumes of books and periodicals, and films, photos, and audiovisual material. The material documents the lives of women of the past and present and reflect a strong collection of resources for research on the history of women in the United States.<\/p>\n

Hired in 2016, Kenvi is leading the charge to ensure the Library\u2019s collections are representative of a diverse group of women and reflective of the full American experience. The charge is part of an increased interest in diversity and inclusion on the Harvard campus in the past several years. A big part of her job is building relationships and trust on-campus, in the Northeast region, and across the country. She is constantly traveling to meet with potential donors, planning workshops and public programming events, and performing personal outreach.<\/p>\n

Meeting with potential donors includes making them aware of the value of their material, offering suggestions for where to place material, and creating a relationship built on honesty, integrity, and respect. Part of making donors aware of the value of their material, Kenvi notes, is “including their voice and values in the way we classify collections in our care.\u201d \u201cWe owe it to ourselves,\u201d she continues, \u201cour children, to do this work.\u201d Touching on the memory of her grandparent\u2019s materials being thrown away, Kenvi is also adamant on offering suggestions outside of Schlesinger Library. \u201cPart of the job is making sure the donors place their material anywhere other than leaving them in a basement,\u201d she remarks.<\/p>\n

At the time of our conversation, Kenvi is working on multiple workshops, public programming events, and on-campus and off-campus outreach efforts. The first effort is a workshop in conjunction with Spelman College, a historically Black college and a global leader in the education of women of African descent in Atlanta. The second is a major public program in conjunction with the Museum of the National Center for Afro-American Artists in Boston. The third is a concerted effort to talk with Harvard alumni of color to fill institutional holes. The fourth is an effort to attend other events throughout the various centers, institutions and programs \u2013 the Hutchins Center, the Museum of Fine Arts, and the Boston Poet Laureate Program \u2013 in the Greater Boston area. Kenvi also performs personal outreach when attending local Juneteenth programs, public library programs, and other community programs.<\/p>\n

When asked about the importance of outreach and advocacy, Kenvi harkens back to the 1960s and 1970s. She notes it was a period where questions like \u201cwhy are we not talking about women\u2019s history or black history\u201d entered the mainstream. She continues \u201cwe partly did not talk about them because they were not present in the \u201cmainstream\u201d archive, we did not have the documents to support the existence of various groups, and so did not have the memory of these groups.\u201d She continues, \u201cit is important to collaborate directly with potential donors and place the evidence of their existence here at Schlesinger or elsewhere through outreach.\u201d<\/p>\n

When asked about a project she has recently done, Kenvi mentions the planning of \u201cThe Difficult Miracle: The Living Legacy of June Jordan<\/a>,\u201d a joint project with Columbia University. The project is a celebration and discussion with activists, poets, scholars, and the public of June Jordan\u2019s work. The discussion will be followed by a poetry slam and reception. One of the goals for the event is to provide an opportunity for face to face contact with the community outside of academia. Hopefully, this event creates a space where \u201cwe can learn together,\u201d Kenvi pauses, \u201cand provide more awareness of our collections.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by Sony Prosper I recently met with Dr. Kenvi Phillips to discuss advocacy and outreach in the context of a curator working in a research library. Kenvi comes from a rich cultural heritage and history background. She received a bachelor\u2019s degree in History. She then earned a master\u2019s degree in Public history and doctorate in … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Meet Dr. Kenvi Phillips, the first curator of Race and Ethnicity at the Schlesinger Library.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":433,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[30334,20576,4738],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-academic-archives-special-collections","category-archivists","category-diversity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/433"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=148"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":163,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148\/revisions\/163"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/slis.simmons.edu\/blogs\/lis476\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}