Rediscovering the Past in a Digital World

Libraries in the digital age face a difficult task: how to draw people in when the first answer to any question has become “Google it.”

Two Terp alums, working with the Oxon Hill Library in Prince George’s County, found a different answer in another 21st-century catchphrase: “Go local.”

Eyoel Delessa ’13, M.L.S. ’15 and Andrea Thomas M.L.S. ’15 are spearheading efforts to rejuvenate the library’s Sojourner Truth Room, a collection of more than 1,600 books and other items on African-American history from back issues of the NAACP magazine The Crisisto rare editions of works by James Baldwin, W.E.B. Du Bois and Zora Neale Hurston.

“The needs of the community are changing, and what we do as librarians are changing,” says Delessa, who along with Thomas began the work as special projects interns with the county’s library system.

The day-to-day tasks of a librarian, he says, have migrated from helping patrons find books to helping them navigate computers, fill out job applications and plan educational and entertaining programs for children.

“It’s almost like an addition of a school,” he says. “It’s a lot more structured.”

So Michelle Hamiel, chief operating officer for public services at the Prince George’s County Memorial Library System, who also taught Delessa and Thomas in a class at UMD’s College of Information Studies, asked the pair to dream up new ways to make Oxon Hill Library a destination. (The library was built on the former site of Sojourner Truth Elementary School, a black school built in 1942 and named for the abolitionist and women’s rights activist.)

The solution was to show the rich history of African-American incorporated towns in Prince George’s County.

“There isn’t one place that anyone can go to get that information,” Hamiel says.

A new exhibition will focus on areas like Eagle Harbor, a coastal town of fewer than 100 people that was founded in 1925. Other highlights include Croom Airport, the site of the first black-owned and -operated airfield in the United States, and local Negro League baseball teams. The alums hope the exhibition will open by early next year.

“Just how large and diverse this county is was mind-blowing to me,” Delessa says.

The pair has also submitted a grant proposal to buy interactive technology like a touch table that can be used to teach history through apps and games.

As part of the Maryland Dialogues on Diversity and Community, Delessa and Thomas will give a presentation about this project on Friday, March 25. More information can be found here.

“People believe that Google has everything,” Hamiel says. “Libraries just open up a whole new world.”