Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age: Background, Forum, and Fruition

Sponsored by Springer Nature

Recorded on 01/06/2021
Posted in The Authority File

Episode 174

The digital age has brought an onslaught of changes to the practice of information preservation. With so much out there at a time, how can archivists keep up? How do librarians fit into the task of finding and safeguarding materials? How can archivists, curators, and librarians work together to collect, restore, and preserve information for years to come?

Susan Mizruchi, director of the Center for Humanities at Boston University, used the leverage of her administrative role to explore these questions. To her, the solution was within walking distance: connecting BU faculty and librarians with staff at the Boston Public Library. Inspired by a lively forum, Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age was born, bringing together experts from divergent fields in academia, as well as public libraries.

In this first episode, Susan explains her background as an academic and her longstanding involvement with public and academic libraries. She also speaks on the process of finding the text’s diverse contributors from across professional roles, countries, ethnicities, and subjects.

About the guest:

Susan Mizruchi
William Arrowsmith Professor in the Humanities
Director, BU Center for the Humanities
Professor of English
Boston University

Susan L. Mizruchi has been working between disciplines throughout her career, earning B.A.s in both history and English from Washington University in 1981, and her Ph.D. in English from Princeton University in 1985 with a dissertation on nineteenth-century literature and historiography. Since coming to Boston University in 1986, she has focused on the intersection of social, religious, and literary studies. Her specialties are American literature and film, religion and culture, literary and social theory, literary history, and history of the social sciences.

Her books include: Brando’s Smile: His Life, Thought, and Work (Norton, 2014, 2015); The Rise of Multicultural America (North Carolina, 2008) Becoming Multicultural: Culture, Economy, and the Novel, 1860–1920 (Cambridge, 2005); The Science of Sacrifice: American Literature and Modern Social Theory (Princeton, 1998); The Power of Historical Knowledge: Narrating the Past in Hawthorne, James, & Dreiser (Princeton, 1988); and as editor, Religion and Cultural Studies, (Princeton, 2001) and Libraries and Archives in the Digital Age (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020).

She is the recipient of many academic honors, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Huntington Library, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Scholars Program. She serves as Oxford University Press’s Delegate in Literature, Film, and Media Studies, and as a consultant for many foundations, among them, PBS (the American Master’s Series), ACLS, NEH, and the Princeton University English Department Advisory Council. Susan has been on the faculty of the Teachers as Scholars Program since 1999. She has directed thirty dissertations at BU and is the recipient of the Arts and Sciences Dean’s Award for Excellence in Graduate Education (2015), and a Distinguished Teaching Award from Boston University’s Honors Program (2001). She became the Director of the Boston University Center for the Humanities in July 2016. In 2017, she was named the inaugural William Arrowsmith Professor in the Humanities.

Enjoy the episode? Check out the rest of the series:

• Episode two: Let’s Talk Politics
• Episode three: Navigating the Flood of Information
• Episode four: The Value of Collaboration

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