This past week I had one of the most exciting days for any Gumberg Library intern – I finally published my Black Modernist Poets guide. After weeks of carefully collecting information on major figures, associated topics, poetic collections, and hunting down archived little magazines, I completed a major guide that I am proud of and is full of useful resources. It has been enlightening to step back from my personal interest in modernism and realign my focus as well a generative exercise, offering new and unexpected avenues of personal research. It has been an pleasure to highlight some lesser-known Black modernists and hopefully introduce people to their work.
I have also started work on a new African American Film guide that will detail the history of Black cinema and feature important films and figures. In addition to offering a timeline of movements within the history Black film, the guide will also offer research topics related to critical discussions of said history including African American cinema during the Civil Rights Era, the impact of Blaxploitation films, and the introduction of Black auteurs in the cinematic canon.
Finally, I began working on my final project: introducing future Gumberg Library interns to the inner workings of the Libguides system. This project will offer new interns a sort of handbook for utilizing the research guide system and serve as a reference for the completion of their guides. My goal for this project is to provide a starting place for the interns before they begin their internship and serve as an optional instruction manual for a variety of guides. I hope that this makes their introduction to the library and the creation of research guides as smooth as possible and will serve as a helpful tool in the creation of their guides.
Building Bridges 