Sharing Community History

This guide is for community organizations and the institutions that hope to partner with them to share their stories online. It provides an introduction to two forms of online sharing common among archives and libraries—aggregation websites and online storytelling — and suggests key questions for community organizations to consider before they decide to share their content online, or before they enter into a partnership with another organization or individual to do so. Sharing Your Stories Online also includes questions and resources for more well-resourced institutions interested in partnering with community organizations.

A robust toolkit for library and archives staff on building a community-based archive within or in collaboration with an institution. It includes background information on community archives, guidance on finding and connecting with potential community partners, and how to establish funding support. It is also a resource for ethical and copyright concerns, collection building, working with community members, raising public awareness, and more.

Includes guidance for community organizations and families on the basics of archival preservation, doing an oral history, and how to scan photos and documents. The resources are provided in English and Spanish. This is an example of a long-standing community-centered archives initiative at an academic library, with lots of free guidance that can be repurposed and shared.

This digital book “equips public history practitioners — particularly those doing public history work in small, rural, or underrepresented communities, with few or no paid staff — with the foundational knowledge needed to support digital readiness in their institutions. We define digital readiness as having the skills, tools, and resources to provide online public access to archives and cultural heritage materials.” The toolkit includes a digital project planning worksheet as well as a self-assessment template for digital audiovisual collections.

Includes resources and learnings from partnerships with “historically underrepresented history keepers in telling, sharing, and preserving their stories.” Resources include overviews of archival concepts and skills you may need to start an archive, as well as guidance on storytelling, collection building, partnerships, and establishing a nonprofit. There are links to more in-depth resources and examples throughout. This is a great place to start for both community organizations or members interested in starting an archive, and institutional partners interested in collaborating with community organizations.

RoPA, the Roadmap for Participatory Archiving, guides libraries and cultural organizations through the process of collaborating with community members to plan engaging and inclusive participatory archiving events and to create digital collections. This toolkit includes workflows, handouts, and templates to help institutions co-design community scanning/digitization events.

The report “summarizes the results of a listening tour conducted in Spring 2022 as the first step in planning for a new Community Archiving Program.” Includes insights and considerations on how academic institutions can successfully partner with community organizations and members.

“The Principles of Anti-Oppressive Community Engagement for University Educators and Researchers are intended to mitigate the harms that can result from community-engaged teaching and research and support the development of systems of accountability between campus and community stakeholders.” This concrete set of recommendations is useful for educators, researchers, and librarians alike.

CAW is a volunteer-organized workshop sponsored by the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA). This website includes a toolkit that contains templates, training modules, and guidance for holding a workshop in your community focused on audiovisual collections care. Often workshops focus on inventory and assessment, but can include digitization, digital file organization, film inspection, and other activities.

Two separate guides, one for museums and one for Native communities, on how to plan and carry out collaborative work. “Although the focus for both documents is on collections-based collaborations, the Guidelines apply to all types of collaborative work in museums, including education, exhibits and public programs.”

Report from a 2018 symposium that “gathered community-based archives to address one of their most pressing needs for sufficiency: sustainable funding.” Includes recommendations for community organizations, funders, university library partners, and scholars that anticipated the suggestions provided in this guide.

Provides recommendations on the funding and sustainability needs of community archives. While primarily addressed to funders, this report also anticipated the guidance provided in this guide.

Writings and case studies by and about a variety of community archives. A great place to get ideas for potential collaborations and to learn about what has worked for other organizations.