Libraries Receive Grant for Digitization of Disability Rights Collections

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The Department of Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) was recently awarded $250,000 from the Council on Library and Information Resources (CLIR) to digitize a suite of collections documenting the history of disability in America and the growth of the disability rights movement.

The Visibility for Disability Project will provide a freely-available and fully-accessible digital foundation for exploring the experience of disability in the United States. The resulting digital archive will draw upon 19 collections representing 150 years of American history. Through the personal papers of activists and the records of organizations devoted to disability, this project will reveal the social, intellectual, political and cultural background of disability and rights-based activism within the broader civil rights struggle.

The Digitizing Hidden Special Collections and Archives Awards support the creation of digital representations of unique content of high scholarly significance that will be discoverable and usable as elements of a coherent national collection.