The State of Internet Access to North Carolina African-American Archival Collections

by Lehman, Eben K.

This study examines the state of online access to African-American archival collections in North Carolina. To measure the relative progress made in providing online access to African-American materials in recent years, as online access to archival materials in general has increased, a survey was conducted that compared current data collected from North Carolina institutions against the information for those same institutions that appears in the Guide to African-American Documentary Resources in North Carolina, published online in 1996. Using criteria derived both from the 1996 Guide and from what might be expected of online access to archival materials at the present, the study reveals that only 15 of the 41 institutions appearing in the 1996 Guide demonstrated significant progress in online access to their African-American holdings. The 15 institutions included mainly well-funded universities, but also smaller institutions that made progress largely through collaborative efforts and/or successfully pursuing funding from outside sources.