Greetings Colleagues, I trust you're well and in good spirits. The message below is from Charles Henry, President, Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR), and includes an invitation for five colleagues to serve on the CLIR Board of Directors. As a member of the CLIR Board of Directors, I'm pleased that our work together impacts scholarship that highlights the contributions of our community. A new CLIR project, Hidden Collections Africa<https://www.clir.org/2022/11/clir-announces-partnership-agreements-for-hidden-collections-africa/>, will directly support institutions and staff across Africa to meet urgent preservation needs, close gaps in the historical record, and make records more accessible to users. The CLIR Board term is three years. Members in good standing should return the CLIR Board of Directors Interest Form<https://forms.gle/es6pRoV9nnkjbU4UA> no later than Monday, July 31st. Contact me directly if you have questions or need additional information. All materials will be forwarded to Charles Henry for handling. Respectfully, Sandra HBCU Library Alliance/CLIR Background The HBCU Library Alliance and the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) entered into a national partnership<https://www.clir.org/initiatives-partnerships/hbcu-library-alliance/> in 2019 that aims to develop collaborative solutions to build community; cultivate leadership; and preserve, make accessible, and advocate for the rich cultural heritage held by HBCUs. This partnership has deeply engaged the CLIR community. Hidden Collections Africa: A New Partnership between the HBCU Library Alliance and CLIR Now we propose to expand our relationship and work together to support the Hidden Collections Africa project. Our hope is to bridge the digital divide between the college campuses and library systems and enable significant bonding with libraries and the general campus community. This project also aims to encourage students to seek librarianship and library-related positions as career options. Our collaboration will include: 1. participating in advisory and steering committees, various consultancies, and sharing responsibility for overall governance of the project; 2. establishing exchange programs between HBCU Library Alliance institutions and cultural and educational institutions in Africa, including faculty, and students, and information and technology professionals; 3. developing new curricula and promoting research based on resources the project will make public; 4. providing wider access to these resources across the world. To strengthen communication and the sharing of interests and ideas, CLIR is inviting five additional representatives from HBCU Library Alliance members in good standing to serve on CLIR's Board of Directors. They could include librarians, faculty members, and university senior administrators. The Hidden Collections Africa project has so many facets, including teaching, high-level engagement, and various exchanges, that drawing from the strength of the HBCU Library Alliance would widen our purview nicely. The Hidden Collections Africa Project Only 3 percent of African cultural materials are digitized and available publicly, at a time when climate change threatens both tangible and intangible culture. Rising sea levels, extreme heat, and aberrant weather patterns are likely to displace millions of people over the next several decades. Climate disasters including fires, floods, desertification, and drought threaten to obliterate the collected cultural artifacts of these peoples. Inventories and digital copies are important safeguards to ensure that some versions of the materials held in African repositories will remain available to future generations. Hidden Collections Africa focuses on: 1. processing, describing, and digitizing hidden and at-risk materials held at collecting organizations in Africa; 2. providing rigorous training; 3. promoting long term sustainability through the adoption of the digital materials into teaching curricula and research. High-level goals include: 1. increased usage of the digital collections; 2. enhanced research and discovery; 3. improved understanding of indigenous knowledge systems; 4. amplified pool of professionals with digitization skills; 5. established flexible and evolving set of protocols and workflows to be adopted by institutions similarly threatened; 6. proof of concept for designing a flexible, technical architecture with a social construct. An Essential Partnership for Sustainability and a Living Infrastructure The HBCULA+CLIR partnership would help establish a new model of infrastructure and sustainability for complex, long-term projects. Defining infrastructure and robust sustainability as social achievements rather than in terms of "technology" and "financing" encourages an interdependence of engagement across institutions, cultures, and generations. This less bounded, more organic, thoughtful approach would attract new collaborators and contributors who know the project is not short-lived. The technical platform could similarly evolve; a longer time frame can attract a community of technologists to work together for mutual benefit. We believe that the HBCULA+CLIR is uniquely positioned to accomplish this transformation. Charles Henry, Ph.D. President Based in New England CLIR https://www.clir.org/<https://url.avanan.click/v2/___https:/nam02.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.clir.org%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cconsuella.askew%40rutgers.edu%7C8da4cf147d9e4b64eadf08db3073b213%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C638157045687921748%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=XoixnUL4nugMddtMCGYnDMbwztEZexNIefSIIDubXg0%3D&reserved=0___.YXAzOnN0YXVnOmE6bzoxMDc4NmMyYWIyYTBlOWYxM2UxMDM4NGMxNjdhYjc3OTo2OjMwMDk6MjNlODczMjE4YWM0MzFlMjI5Y2EyNjJkYTY0NmYzMjY1MjgzMmNkODM0ZWRhYTkxZTVjYjU2ZjExOGU0YjQzNTpoOlQ> Alexandria, VA Sandra Phoenix Executive Director at HBCU Library Alliance<http://hbculibraries.org/> Office: (678) 210-5801 ext. 101 Mobile: (404) 702-5854 Web: hbculibraries.org<http://hbculibraries.org/> Email: sphoenix@hbculibraries.org<mailto:sphoenix@hbculibraries.org> Seek justice, honor the ancestors, honor the children and those yet to come. Sandra Phoenix Executive Director at HBCU Library Alliance<http://hbculibraries.org/> Office: (678) 210-5801 ext. 101 Mobile: (404) 702-5854 Web: hbculibraries.org<http://hbculibraries.org/> Email: sphoenix@hbculibraries.org Seek justice, honor the ancestors, honor the children and those yet to come. [cid:image001.gif@01D9B62C.748D3DD0]<https://www.facebook.com/hbculibraryalliance1/> [cid:image002.gif@01D9B62C.748D3DD0] <https://twitter.com/HBCULibAlliance> [cid:image003.png@01D9B62C.748D3DD0] <https://www.instagram.com/hbcu_library_alliance/> [cid:image004.gif@01D9B62C.748D3DD0] <https://hbculibraryalliance.wordpress.com/>