Community engagement

Mapping Prejudice extends its reach

The Mapping Prejudice Project tracks structural racism in historic racial covenants that banned non-whites from owning or occupying property. In July 2020, 400 volunteers at Medtronic transcribed 5,200 deeds; many committed to spreading the word about the project to others. Over the last three years, the project team mobilized more than 3,000 volunteers who have transcribed the information to place over 24,000 racial covenants on the map of Hennepin County — and they have expanded to Ramsey County. 

Minitex benefits Minnesotans

Minitex, a shared program of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education and the University Libraries, saved Minnesota libraries $5.27 million in FY20 through its cooperative purchasing program; shared 95,000 items from our collections with libraries across Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota in FY19; and hosted almost 50 million searches in eLibrary Minnesota in FY20. 

Libraries events

The fall 2020 season of Libraries events took place online in response to COVID-19. The First Fridays series of archival talks highlighted materials from the Andersen Horticultural Library, the Children’s Literature Research Collections, and the James Ford Bell Library. The online season of the Friends Forum: A Series for Curious Minds kicked off in September with the Pankake Poetry Reading, featuring Wang Ping. A second event, “Behind the headlines: Reporters and news consumers in a 24/7 media world,” brought U of M experts Gayle Golden, Lindsay Matts-Benson, and Cody Hennesy together with Star Tribune journalist Kelly Smith to take a look at the challenge of media literacy. 

The Tretter Collection’s oral history news  

Transcripts is a new podcast that puts the transgender movement in context. Using oral histories from the Tretter Transgender Oral History Project at the University Libraries, hosts Andrea Jenkins and Myrl Beam introduce listeners to the trans activists who are changing our world. Started in 2015 to document the diversity and breadth of transgender experiences, the oral history project entered Phase 2 last year. The second phase focuses on the activists working to overcome barriers that trans people experience in the areas of housing insecurity, police violence, health care, and other justice issues.