June 2, 2015 - Comments Off on In Process | Bridging Local History & Community Archives
In Process | Bridging Local History & Community Archives
In Process is a blog series that highlights the activities and experiences of current archival studies students in the Los Angeles area. Check in every two weeks, for grad students’ insights and fresh perspectives on new and emerging trends, issues, and events in the field.
By Noah Geraci
I care about places and their histories more than I care about many things. If we are close friends, I’ll want to walk with you in the neighborhood where I grew up and narrate the changes I have witnessed in my lifetime: the condo complex that sits where the bowling alley used to be, the loud, sprawling patio of the sports bar that used to be a windowless gay bar, marked on the exterior only by a painting of a wolf, the fancy restaurant with condos on top that used to be the weirdest, best junk store. I’ll hope that you’ll want to do the same, to show me where you are from. This is partly how I came to archives: wanting to learn the secrets of places.
One of the first places I started looking for these kinds of secrets, as a teenager, was in the local history room of the San Diego Public Library. By looking through the historic newspaper collections, I was able to get a better grasp on the tensions surrounding race, sexuality and class that had shaped North Park, where I’m from. So when I began to consider MLIS programs years later, one of my first daydreams was of working as a local history librarian in a public library. Read more