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Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture Mission / Collection Development Policy StatementThe Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture is a research unit of The New York Public Library. A national research library, it is devoted to collecting, preserving and providing access to resources documenting the experiences of peoples of African descent throughout the world, with emphasis on blacks in the Western Hemisphere. The Center provides access to and professional reference assistance in the use of its collections to the scholarly community and the general public through five research divisions, each managing materials in specific formats but with broad subject access. It also facilitates access to these holdings through mail and telephone reference services, inter-library and inter-institutional loans, participation in national computerized databases and publication of bibliographies and other finding aids. The Center promotes the study of the histories and cultures of peoples of African descent and interprets its collections through exhibitions, publications, educational, scholarly, and cultural programs. ART & ARTIFACTS DIVISION
The Art & Artifacts Division collects, documents, preserves and interprets art and artifacts by and about peoples of African heritage throughout the world. Fine and applied art and material culture objects are collected from the seventeenth century to the present with emphasis on the visual arts of the twentieth century in the United States, the Americas and Africa. Works collected include paintings, sculptures, works on paper, textiles, artifacts and ephemera.
The Division collects (through gifts and purchases), art and artifacts encompassing four broad areas: traditional African art; painting and sculpture; works on paper (i.e. drawings, prints, illustrations, posters and reproductions); textiles and artifacts.
Traditional African Art Traditional masks, bronze adornment items, statuary, instruments, utilitarian objects and weaponry form the core of the Schomburg Center's African art holdings. These objects document aesthetic and ethnographic dimensions of traditional West African societies and African cultures in South America. Painting and Sculpture The collection of painting and sculpture surveys the history of art by African American artists from the late nineteenth century to the present. The majority of works in this category represent the Harlem Renaissance, the Works Project Administration (WPA) and the post-World War II periods, and the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Depictions of African-American life, genre themes including urban landscapes, portraiture and still-life dominate the work prior to the 1960s. Subjects covered include religion, entertainment, family and civil rights. There are also non-figurative and abstract works and assemblages from the 1950s forward. Works on Paper Posters and reproductions comprise the largest group in the category of
works on paper. There are well over 4,000 posters in the collection documenting
political, social, and cultural activities and events. Advertising art
reflecting positive and stereotypical images of blacks is represented.
Also included are nineteenth century lithographs and engravings depicting
people of African descent in Africa and the diaspora as portrayed by artists
from Europe and throughout the Western Hemisphere. Original fine art prints
and drawings by African American and African diasporan Textiles and Artifacts Uniforms, art quilts, strip weaving, tie-dyed and commemorative cloth and appliques comprise the textile holdings. There are also some representative samples of 'T' shirts from the 1960s. The collection of artifacts includes a wide range of two and three dimensional objects, such as slave shackles, medallions, commemorative coins, currencies, stamps and buttons covering civil rights themes, political campaigns, slogans and organizations. A few samples of games are included here.
The Art & Artifacts Collection is one of the most comprehensive of its kind in a major public research institution. Especially strong are the holdings of African American painting and sculpture of the Harlem Renaissance, the WPA and the Black Arts Movement periods. There are also strong holdings of African masks, statuary, instruments and utilitarian objects contained in the Blondiau Theater-Arts and the Harold and Florence Rome collections. These collections contain old and rare items from Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. African weaponry and bronze adornment items from Nigeria, Gabon, Cameroon, Burkina Faso, Mali, Morocco and Ivory Coast are contained in the Eric DeKolb and Arnold and Joanne Syrop collections respectively. The objects contained in the Melville and Frances Herskovits collection provide extensive ethnographic documentation from Surinam, South America and several West African regions. The materials in the Herskovits collection are supported by field notes and photographic archives in other divisions. In the category of artifacts, the Middleton A. "Spike" Harris collection constitutes one of the more important collections of anti-slavery medallions. Fine art prints by noted artists covering a wide range of subjects form an important part of the collection. The CEBA (Communications Excellence to Black Audiences) Collection is also one of the most significant holdings of visual resource materials portraying African-Americans in national advertising campaigns during the late 1970s and 1980s. Within the category of works on paper the collection of anti-apartheid posters is an important primary source that documents international sentiment for racial equality and human rights in southern Africa during that period.
An ongoing objective of the Division is to survey the development of art and artifacts by and about people of African descent. Collection priorities are to strengthen holdings by acquiring works such as: art of self-taught or folk artists whose works are inspired by personal and/or spiritual experiences. Contemporary works by American, Caribbean, Central and South American artists of African descent whose works express cultural identity will also be collected. Artworks by master African American and African diasporan artists that reflect their mastery over time as well as the critical role they have played in the development of modern and post-modern art will also be acquired. As a standing objective, the Division seeks works by artists of African descent who live and work in the New York region. Areas for further development include the collection of contemporary art and artifacts, particularly from Sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean. Works on paper, i.e. posters and prints on subjects ranging from dance, theater and entertainment to social, civic, political and religious themes will be sought. To the extent possible the work of artists using evolving electronic technologies in the 21st century will be added to the collection. JEAN BLACKWELL HUTSON GENERAL RESEARCH AND REFERENCE DIVISION
The General Research and Reference Division has responsibility to identify, acquire, preserve and provide access to published information by and about people of African descent throughout the world. The division is the principal provider of professional reference service for the Center. In collaboration with the special collections divisions, the General Research Division engages in selection activities to develop comprehensive, complementary collections.
The division acquires monographic and serial publications on paper, and in micro and electronic formats. Both popular and scholarly works are acquired, including dissertations, pamphlets, and art and exhibition catalogs. Serial publications include periodicals, newspapers, newsletters and conference proceedings. Flyers and other ephemera are held in the division's clipping files. The division also holds a small collection of topographic and thematic maps dating from the 16th century through the 20th century.
The division's holdings cover disciplines within the arts, humanities and social sciences as well as the presence and role of people of African descent in the natural sciences. Populations of African on the African continent and surrounding islands, diasporan communities in Europe, the Americas and the islands of the Pacific are extensively documented. The diasporan emphasis is on the Western Hemisphere including the Caribbean Basin, South America (notably Brazil), Central America and North America. English is the predominate language represented in the collection. Other
European languages include French, Portuguese, German, Spanish, and Dutch.
Works in numerous indigenous African languages and African influenced languages
(creoles, pidgins, etc.) are also collected. Except for Ethiopian language
texts (Amharic and Geez) and translations of African-American literary
classics in Asian languages such as Japanese and Chinese, works in non-Roman
scripts are not generally acquired. The division holdings attempt to be comprehensive for the United States, Brazil the Caribbean area and sub-Saharan Africa. Strengths include African, Caribbean and African-American literary works and works documenting the historical and cultural legacy of the global African experience with emphasis on Harlem and the New York metropolitan area. The performing and visual arts are also well represented in division holdings. The division maintains a strong retrospective and current collection of African-American, Caribbean and African newspapers and other serials.
Collection priorities are to improve serial holdings of relevant U.S. newspapers published outside the New York metropolitan area and to improve over-all holdings of publications from Latin America, Europe and the Caribbean area with particular emphasis on strengthening serial holdings. Attention will be given to both current and retrospective publications. Another priority is the documentation of recent migrations of people of African descent and the cultural and socio-political effects of these movements. Providing access to materials published in electronic formats will also be a priority.
MANUSCRIPTS, ARCHIVES AND RARE BOOKS DIVISION
The Manuscripts, Archives and Rare Books Division collects, preserves and makes available for research purposes rare, unique and primary materials which document the history and culture of peoples of African descent throughout the world, with a concentration on the Americas and the Caribbean.
The Division's holdings include personal papers; records of organizations and institutions, including the records of the Schomburg Center, literary and scholarly typescripts, scripts, rare books, sheet music, broadsides, programs and playbills, and other ephemera.
The Division's manuscript holdings focus on the history, literature, politics,
and culture of peoples of African descent in the Americas and Africa, primarily
in the twentieth century, complemented by a substantial collection of manuscript
collections on microfilm. Subject emphasis includes: the performing and
visual arts; women in the United States; Haitian history; African- American The rare book holdings date from the late sixteenth through the twentieth centuries; the bulk of the titles are pre-1865 imprints. Languages represented in the collection are primarily English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Dutch and German. Subject coverage includes the following broad categories: slavery in the Americas; anti-slavery issues in the United States and the Caribbean; literature, history; biography; travel narratives in Africa and the Americas; and religion. In addition, the collection contains first, early and variant editions by black authors up to 1901, first editions by authors of the Harlem Renaissance period, and prize winning titles by black authors up to the present. The literary and scholarly typescripts collection covers a wide range of subjects and literary genres, as well as historical, sociological and anthropological works, dating primarily from the early twentieth century. Included are book manuscripts, chapters, articles, essays, short stories, poetry, speeches and scholarly papers. The various script collections consists of published and unpublished play, film and radio scripts, and includes works by important black writers. The sheet music collections contain vocal and instrumental compositions encompassing the following genres: spirituals, secular folk songs, ragtime, blues, jazz, gospel, popular songs and show tunes, and European classical music by composers of African descent. Geographic coverage is primarily for the United States, the Caribbean and Africa. The broadsides and programs and playbills collections primarily document theatrical, cultural, social and political events in the United States from the late nineteenth century to the present.
The manuscripts and archival collections are strongest for the twentieth century in the areas of the performing arts, women’s studies, Harlem, civil rights and post-civil rights movements, cultural and political movements, African-American religion, and Haitian, Caribbean and Central African history. Geographic concentration within the manuscripts collection is primarily in the United States. Subject and genre strength for the rare book collection includes slavery
and anti-slavery in the United States, fiction, travel narratives in the
Americas and Africa, the history of blacks in the United States and Caribbean,
biography, and poetry. In addition, the collection has one of the finest
representative collections of works by authors of the Harlem Renaissance,
nineteenth century black women authors, and monographs published during
the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by and about black
people.
Collection development activities will concentrate on acquiring manuscripts collections in the subject areas already identified in sections III and IV, with particular emphasis on the following subject and geographic areas: civil rights movements and post-civil rights movements and organizations; Caribbean and Caribbean-American individuals and organizations; artists' and photographers' papers that complement the art and photographic holdings in the other divisions; social activists, primarily within the political and cultural realms in the New York metropolitan area; literature; labor; performing arts; religion; women’s studies; Harlem social, cultural and political activities; family papers focusing on New York City and the tri-state region; and African- American politicians and political organizations within New York State. There will be no chronological limitations, however, the focus will be on the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The Division will continue to collect rare books and pamphlets in the areas identified in sections III and IV, with an emphasis on works written by black authors. Sheet music acquisitions will concentrate on developing holdings of gospel, jazz, European classical music by black composers, and traditional and contemporary Caribbean, Brazilian and African music. MOVING IMAGE AND RECORDED SOUND DIVISION
The Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division documents the experiences of peoples of African descent, as those experiences have been captured via traditional and new audiovisual and multimedia technologies. The MIRS Division also directs, produces, manages and maintains the Center's two-decade-old Oral History/Video Documentation Program, which records the life stories, viewpoints and/or performances of persons representing a wide range of disciplines and experiences for the historical record. Through this documentation program the Center is also able to videotape virtually all of the myriad public programs (conferences, symposia, lectures and performances) presented by the Center.
The MIRS Division collections encompass a variety of magnetic, optical and other
media formats. These include motion picture film, analogue and digital audio
recordings, vinyl discs, analogue video recordings, multimedia CD-ROMs, etc. The collection is global in scope and includes a broad range of subjects. Included are documentary and dramatic films, principally focusing upon international political, anthropological, religious and arts themes. A unique collection of public affairs television programs gives insight into the concerns of African Americans in local communities across the United States. Public Service Announcements and commercial advertisements from the broadcast media are also well represented. The recorded music collection covers the various traditional and contemporary genres that have developed out of the cultures of African peoples in Africa, the Caribbean and the Americas. These holdings range from the earliest recordings of the classic blues singers and jazz orchestras, through gospel and rhythm and blues offerings, to contemporary popular forms, such as reggae, soca and rap. African American composers and performers of'European classical music are also represented. The spoken arts collections include original cast recordings of theatrical productions, historic dramatizations from radio's golden age, radio broadcasts and speeches from the modern civil rights and militancy eras, and contemporary lectures and conference proceedings.
Among the unique strengths of the MIRS Division are a strong representative collection of African American popular and traditional music genres: a growing collection of nation- wide public affairs television broadcasts; Caribbean and African contemporary popular music recordings (including Latin music forms); and early jazz and tap dance film footage. Additionally, the oral history collections, with hundreds of hours of audio recordings from other sources, have strengthened the Center's own Oral History/Video Documentation Program. Both as individual and as series interviews, these primary source video testimonies constitute what is widely viewed as the nation's longest- running video oral history program. Among the subject series are Black Physicians and Health Care in the African American Community; African American Labor Leaders; Black Dance Pioneers; Black Scientists; Community Development Corporation Pioneers', Jazz Music and Musicians; and others.
Collection Development priorities in the MIRS Division include a mix of existing and new initiatives including:
PHOTOGRAPHS AND PRINTS DIVISION
The Photographs and Prints Division collects, preserves and makes available for research, publication and exhibition, photographs and prints which document peoples of African descent worldwide. The Division also acquires a representative body of documentary and fine art photography by U.S.-born photographers of African descent.
The Division collects prints, transparencies and negatives ranging from
mid-eighteenth century graphics to modern photographic prints. Daguerreotypes,
ambrotypes, and albumen prints are among the nineteenth century photographic
processes represented. Twentieth century photographic processes include
gelatin silver, C-prints and cibachrome prints. Manual and process prints
include wood engravings, lithographs, photogravures and photolithographs.
Cartes-de-visite, stereographs, postcards and lobby cards are among the
formats collected. The collection covers the broad range of the human experience among people of African descent worldwide. Its subjects date principally from the 18th century but are strongest in the 20th century. Lithographs and engravings portray early African rulers and leaders and interpret traditional life and customs in pre-colonial Africa. Daguerreotypes and ambrotypes document the work of nineteenth century African-American photographers as well as early photographic images of African Americans by other photographers. Cartes-de-visite include portrayals of free blacks and enslaved and colonized Africans in the United States, South America and the Caribbean during the 19th century. Stereographs offer a glimpse into the education, labor, family and social life of African Americans and Afro-Caribbeans from the 1860s to the turn-of- the twentieth century. Twentieth century photographs document historic figures, events, personalities, human rights activities and the presence of peoples of African descent in the Americas and in Africa. Engravings and lithographs portray early African rulers and leaders and interpret traditional life and customs in pre-colonial Africa.
For the continental United States, the collection is strongest in the following subject areas: Harlem, performing and visual arts, modern civil rights movements, religion, military and organizational (fraternal, political and human rights) activities. Rural southern life from the late 1930s to the early 1940s is documented by a sizeable collection of images produced under the auspices of the Farm Security Administration. Holdings also include a significant collection of portraits of primarily twentieth century historic figures and personalities including civic and political leaders worldwide, musicians and entertainers, sports figures, writers, and artists and other luminaries from the Harlem Renaissance. There is also a strong, representative collection of work by nineteenth and twentieth century African-American photographers. For the Diaspora, the collection is strongest in nineteenth and turn-of-the-century studio portraits, anthropological studies, landscapes and cityscapes and views of traditional life and labor in Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean.
Collection development priorities will focus on acquiring work from studio and documentary photographers and photojournalists which documents the African experience worldwide during the 20th century, with an emphasis on the work of photographers of African descent. The Division will also focus on collecting portraits of leaders and activists, and images of significant events throughout the world, particularly African and Caribbean independence and post-independence activities. The Division will also seek to document the economic, political, social and cultural transformations taking place among African peoples in Europe. Documentation of the black communities in the outer boroughs of New York City, historical and contemporary, will also be heavily emphasized. The Division will collect work by photographers of African descent who are making significant contributions to the field of fine art photography, with an emphasis on African and African Diasporan themes. The Division will also collect new and future photographic expressions including state-of-the-art digital photography. |
