New Digital Platform for Special Collections and Archives

Queens College Library is proud to launch a new digital platform for its Special Collections and Archives in partnership with the JSTOR Open Community Collections initiative. The site launches with close to 700 digital objects from our civil right collections, institutional archives, and rare books and manuscripts. The content is openly accessible on the web through JSTOR, a scholarly database used by more than 81 million scholars and students across 170 countries and territories every year. 

Working remotely this fall, Special Collections and Archives staff will catalog and upload hundreds of additional items to the site. Intern Kuba Pieczarski (funded by the Félix V. Matos Rodríguez Internship Fund) is expanding the new COVID-19 Collection documenting the experience of the Queens College community during the pandemic; Graduate Fellow Victoria Fernandez (funded by the Freda S. and J. Chester Johnson Endowment) is working with civil rights movement materials; and Archives Assistant and recent GSLIS graduate Caitlin Waldron is posting images of the campus through the decades. 

The collections benefit from JSTOR’s features and interface, including full-text search; citation management tools; filtering and faceting; content download; and sharing. Make sure to check out the site at https://www.jstor.org/site/queenscollegearchives/, including the Silhouette yearbook form 1941-2011; original photographs documenting the involvement of Queens College students in the Civil Rights Movement of the early to mid 1960s; rare manuscripts from our “Pages from the Past” collection; and the scrapbooks of Dr. Andrew Greller, Professor Emeritus of Biology.

You can learn more about the JSTOR Open Community Collections initiative at https://about.jstor.org/whats-in-jstor/open-community-collections/.

Rosenthal Library Archives Fellow & GSLIS graduate Jeanie Pai wins SAA Award

Queens College Library is proud to announce that Jeanie Pai, who served as a Graduate Fellow in Special Collections and Archives over the 2019-2020 academic year, is the 2020 recipient of the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award given by the Society of American Archivists (SAA). As announced by SAA: 

Established in 2005, the Donald Peterson Student Travel Award supports students and recent graduates from graduate archival programs within North America to attend SAA’s Annual Meeting. The goal of the scholarship is to stimulate greater participation in the activities of SAA, such as presenting research or actively participating in an SAA-sponsored committee or section. 

Pai is a recent graduate of the Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies. Her SAA poster presentation is entitled, Paper Sons of the Chinese Exclusion Era. It describes her research into the history and experiences of paper sons, and how they contributed to the shaping of Chinese American communities. Her interests lie in emerging issues of inclusion and access, particularly toward resources for disadvantaged groups that are historically misrepresented. She is committed to recognizing the gaps in collections, and exploring honest ways to preserve the history of marginalized groups, including what archival materials to collect, how it is described, and who has access to the records. Pai’s belief is that active inclusion allows archivists to create democratic spaces where people of all backgrounds have agency and representation.

A supporter of Pai states, “She is genuinely motivated by the core values of social justice, ethics, inclusion, and access and will continue to be guided by them in her career.”

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Pai is pictured (right) with Archives Fellow Tom Gubernat at the Memory Lab Bootcamp in Washington DC in January 2020. Pai and Gubernat’s Archives Fellowships in the Queens College LIbrary were funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Model Minority vs. COVID-19 and #BLM

In Case You Missed It: Model Minority vs. COVID-19

On June 17, the Queens College Library partnered with the Queens Public Library to host a Queens Memory COVID-19 Project event, Model Minority vs. COVID-19: Education Through Crisis, for Asians In America.” This virtual roundtable was moderated by incoming Queens College president Frank Wu, author of Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White, and co-sponsored by the Asian/American Center at Queens College, and the Asian American/Asian Research Institute – CUNY. Panelists included Professor Joyce Moy, Executive Director of the Asian American and Asian Research Institute; Dr. Madhulika Khandelwal, Director of Asian/American Center; Dr. Vivian Louie, Director of the Asian American Studies Program and Center at Hunter College; and Dr. John Chin, Professor of Urban Policy and Planning and Director of the Graduate Urban Planning Program at Hunter College. Panelists had a fruitful discussion of the “model minority” myth, the current higher educational experience for Asians in America, racism during the pandemic, and how Asians in America can provide ally-ship and solidarity to other groups experiencing racial oppression.

The event can now be viewed on the Queens Memory streaming platform: click here!

Resource: Asian American Community Collaboration, Support and Advocacy on BLM and Killing of George Floyd

Compiled by Antony Wong, Program Coordinator, Asian American/Asian Research Institute (AAARI) City University of New York (This is not intended to be an exhaustive list)

Resources for Asian Americans Against Anti-Black Racism

  • Asian Americans Supporting the Black Community — An Explainer and Resources (link)
  • Resources for the Asian American Community on Anti-Blackness (Asian Americans Advancing Justice) (link)
  • Meet the Asian Americans helping to uproot racism in their communities (link)
  • 75 ways Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are speaking out for Black lives (link)

Organizations with Statements Regarding George Floyd/Black Lives Matter

Co-Endorsing Organizations of Movement for Black Lives (M4BL)

  • Asian Solidarity Collective
  • AAPIs for Civic Empowerment
  • Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance – APALA
  • Can’t Stop! Won’t Stop! Consulting
  • NAKASEC
  • Southeast Asian Freedom Network
  • 18 Million Rising
  • Equality Labs
  • Grassroots Asians Rising
  • Southeast Asia Resource Action Center (SEARAC)
  • The National Council of Asian Pacific Americans (NCAPA)
  • PICO California
  • Providence Youth Student Movement
  • HANA Center
  • Khmer Anti-deportation Advocacy Group
  • Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Chicago
  • Japanese American Citizens League
  • OCA-Asian American Advocates (East Bay)
  • Asian American Advocacy Fund
  • Filipino Advocates for Justice
  • MinKwon Center for Community Action
  • Asian Law Alliance
  • Asian Americans United
  • South Asian Americans Leading Together
  • APIENC (API Equality – Northern California)
  • Khmer Girls in Action
  • VietRISE
  • Oakland Asian Cultural Center
  • National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum
  • CAA Chinese for Affirmative Action
  • Ahri Center
  • Asian Americans Advancing Justice | Asian Law Caucus
  • The People’s Collective for Justice and Liberation
  • VietAID
  • National Coalition for Asian Pacific American Community Development (National CAPACD)
  • AZ AANHPI for Equity
  • Asian Americans Advancing Justice – Atlanta

More about the Queens Memory COVID-19 Project

Learn more about this community archiving project and how you can contribute your stories, photographs, and videos here