Expanding Public Knowledge

What is possible with a more complete and accessible cultural record?

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment
The Video Lab at the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Center processes moving images recorded on aging VR2000 Quad and Sony ½” EIAJ VTRs. Photo: Stefan Ruiz for Mellon Foundation

A full and rich cultural and scholarly record is essential to understanding who we are. How we access and interact with books, archives, technology, and other artifacts is one of Mellon’s core interests as a grantmaker. By increasing equitable access to resources, and ensuring knowledge is produced as well as preserved, we can help foster a more informed and critically engaged society.

Four Indigenous Alaskan men dressed in ceremonial clothing and headresses
Washington State University
Designed with Care: Mukurtu Provides Ethical Tools for Archiving and Preservation of Indigenous Heritage
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WGBH Educational Foundation
Reel Talk: Saving America’s Public Media Matters More Than You May Know
Faulkner Morgan 2
LGBTQ+ in Lexington, Kentucky

Inside the Faulkner Morgan Archive

Headshot of Robert Morgan
Robert Morgan
Co-founder, Faulkner Morgan Archive

I thought, ‘If something happens to me, nobody will know any of these stories or what any of this material was about.’

Headshot of Robert Montoya
Robert Montoya
Director, UCLA California Rare Book School and the Libraries, Justice, & Ethics Lab

Libraries and librarians need to see themselves as active agents … who must support community participation and take a stand against social injustice.

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