Dispatches from the Field - Welcome to the team Charmaine Bonner

In this series titled “Dispatches from the Field” we highlight stories from members of the Arizona State University (ASU) Library and the Community-Driven Archives (CDA) team regarding the work we are doing at ASU Library and the work library and archives professionals are doing associated with community archiving. We would like to announce the addition of Charmaine Bonner to the CDA team. Charmaine is currently the Processing Archivist at ASU and will be joining the CDA team to continue her processing work for ASU Library as well as assist the team with outreach projects to the Black community here in Arizona as well as assist the team with identifying archival materials for digital exhibits. 

Charmaine is a native Detroiter who became interested in history at an early age. Bonner initially decided to become a teacher but a position as a library student worker inspired her to pursue librarianship. Eventually, Bonner learned she could connect her love for history and librarianship into one career through archives. The rest is history. Currently, she is responsible for arranging, describing, accessioning and re-boxing manuscript collections. After a collection is physically processed, she writes a finding aid for each collection. A finding aid is a guide that describes the collection and its' creator(s),  historical background and significance, the contents of each box and folder, restrictions (if there are any) and gives instructions of how a patron can access the collection. Bonner is interested in exploring the collections at the ASU Library as a means to learn more about history, uncover hidden stories, and is open to collaboration.  

The CDA team is thrilled to have Charmaine join our team as her insights in processing archival collections as well as her extensive knowledge of Black genealogy research brings a much needed component to our team when engaging with the Black community here in Arizona.  

Contact me, Jessica Salow, with feedback at Jessica.Salow@asu.edu, as I would love to hear from you your thoughts regarding the work we here at ASU are doing in community archiving around Arizona. We also want your feedback on what you would like to see from us in future blog posts. And if you would like regular updates from the CDA team please follow our CDA Facebook page or the CDA Instagram page to keep abreast of the virtual events we are doing monthly. We have also made some changes to our website to better describe the community-driven archives initiative at ASU Library so please visit that page to learn more about our work or to connect with the rest of our team.

See you next week!