RICHMOND, Va. – The Richmond Public Library is calling on the community to contribute personal stories, photos, and artifacts to create a digital archive documenting the removal of Confederate monuments from the city.
The Monuments Collection, part of the library system’s Digital Special Collections, currently contains items like a photo of the monuments in storage, and official government records such as public comment logs. And although those documents are an important piece of the story, the team behind the project says there is a much fuller story to be told.
“The reason we want to add to the Monuments Collection is so that it’s not just the city’s voice by way of the city government in the archives, in the publicly available historical record,” said Ben Himmelfarb, Branch Manager at Richmond’s Main Library. “We want everyday people’s voices in there.”…