Jane and I are embarking on a Really Big Road Trip -- were moving to the Detroit area! I have accepted an offer to become director of the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs at Wayne State University. Sorry for the long message, but easier to give you some details. I know, I know, Im totally breaking FB etiquette. It has been a difficult decision to leave the Michigan Humanities Council. The programs and grantmaking of this group are impressive and the people I’ve had the fortune to work with are some of the smartest, funniest, and most creative people I’ve ever known. I got to be the face of a statewide organization and travel around Michigan enjoying everything that makes this state the best in nation. In some ways, this is a chance for Jane and me to revisit old haunts. We each spent our formative years in metro Detroit, we first met in a suburban Detroit high school, and we’ve each been students at one time or another at Wayne State’s urban campus. I completed my master’s degree in the library science program there – and did most of my archival training right in the Reuther library. It is really an honor to return as director. The Reuther Library (reuther.wayne.edu/) is the central archival repository at Wayne State University and is internationally known for its labor collections. This began with the acquisition of the records of the Detroit-based United Auto Workers (UAW) in the 1960s, and now includes the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the National Association of Letter Carriers, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), the Airline Pilots Association, the United Farm Workers, and the American Federation of Teachers. Equally exciting, the Reuther Library is the largest manuscript collection in (and about) the metropolitan Detroit area. Its collections include thousands of cubic feet of records about the history of the city and metro area including civic, ethnic, religious, and organizational records. Visual collections include 800,000 images from the Detroit News and another 15,000 from Detroit Free Press photographer Tony Spina (take a peek at image collections here reuther.wayne.edu/image including their “Virtual Motor City” portal). It is exciting to return to archives work again. Wayne State has many great pieces to build upon: amazing collections, a large oral history collection, university records, integration with (and support from) the campus library system, and a graduate program in archival administration to supply lots of eager students to augment the staff of 16 (I was one of them back in 1992!). Weve been away from the Detroit area since 1993 and have followed its decline with much regret. It is a city we feel a connection to and we are excited to take some small part in its resurgence – both professionally and personally. There are still many details to work out – precisely when I’ll leave my current job, when I’ll start the new one, what new work adventures await Jane, where we’ll live, and when we’ll move. But we feel that this is the right move at the right time, and the next logical step in our journey together.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 12:56:39 +0000
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