At Temple University’s symposium in honor of the inauguration of the University’s new president, on Oct. 18, 2013.

Anne Kenney is University Librarian at Cornell.

For the past six years, Cornell has been building a hiphop collection. It began as the private archive of Johan Kugelberg, who recognize the cultural importance of popular music. He went in search of recordings, posters, flyers, etc. Cornell acquired the collection 2007. Cornell acquired Joe Conzo’s photographs.

But you don’t usually think about hiphop in beautiful, rural upstate NY. “So the rest of the story is about engagement.” Cornell needed to show the community that it’s a responsible steward. So, they held an inaugural conference in Oct. 2008, which included music, talks about hiphop founders, roundtables, etc. Academics also came. It began a two year period of intensive engagement. Anne shows some great photos of the interactions.

Seeing their photos on the same shelves as the Gettysburg Address was (as Joe Conzo said) “priceless.” Many of the artists themselves have gone out to spread word about the collection.

She shows some classroom use of the materials, in multiple disciplines. The artists have been spreading word. Cornell is proud of the integration of the artists into the academic environment. E.g., Afrika Bambaataa is a 3-year visiting scholar. She points about many more events and classes, some in partnership with other institutions and cities. E.g., the Class of 1945 requested a workshop.

She ends by talking about engaging the public in crowd-archiving. A gallery in SOHO was turned over to cataloging the 40,000 record collection of Afrika Bambaataa.

Anne says: “The future of most large research libraries lies…with unique and special materials” (Rick Anderson, “Can’t buy Us Love” 2013).

See Preserving HipHop.

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