Carol A. Rudisell, librarian at the University of Delaware Library, writes about working with the Colored Conventions Project (previously featured at #ADPhD & Diaspora Hypertext, the Blog):

“During the past three years I’ve had the opportunity of working collaboratively with the Colored Conventions Project (CCP), a dedicated team of scholars, students, and library professionals whose goal has been to unlock the history of the Colored Conventions movement that for decades has been relegated to the pages of long out-of-print texts or buried within the millions of pages reproduced by the Google Books Library Project, the Internet Archive, and similar mass digitization projects.   The CCP is a highly diverse working group with respect to ethnicity, age, scholarly discipline, professional expertise, and educational attainment. The work of the project is carried out by many—from first-year college students to endowed professors—and while we have varying levels of knowledge about African American history and culture, one thing that challenges us all are the complexities presented by intellectual and physical property rights within the context of a digital humanities project. Rather than be daunted by copyright issues, we’ve tried to embrace them and seize teaching moments as they arise….”

Read the rest: Liberating History: Reflections on Rights, Rituals and the Colored Conventions Project › Common-placeCommon-place: The Journal of early American Life