Digitization Services

The Gwendolyn Brooks Papers are one of the premier literary collections available in the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Brooks was the first African American to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for her poetry work. Acquired in 2013, the collection is comprised of correspondence, manuscripts and journals detailing her early writing efforts, photographs, and scrapbooks, among the most notable objects. This collection truly provides a window into Brooks’ personal world as a daughter, a wife and a mother, and her professional career as a writer, educator, and influencer of young African Americans and minorities looking to carve their place in the literary world.

Providing global, and hopefully unrestricted, access to research the contents of the Gwendolyn Brooks Papers is an urgent priority for the Rare Book & Manuscript Library. Through the Save America’s Treasures grant we have been able to coordinate targeted conservation treatments and plan the digitization of selected materials.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Nora Brooks Blakely for supporting our exhibit.

We would also like to thank our partners in the Library for collaborating with us on this exhibit.

Special thanks to the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for it's support through the Save America's Treasure Grant. 

Our Library Partners

Rare Book & Manuscript Library - Ana Rodriguez (Digitization Coordinator and Registrar), Ruthann Mowry (Curator of Rare Book and Manuscripts), Lynne M. Thomas (Head of RBML), Kate M. Vasquez-Braun (RBML Graduate Assistant), Ben Ostermeier (RBML Graduate Assistant and Omeka Support)