The Booth Family Center for Special Collections, which houses rare materials in Lauinger Library, celebrated its 10th anniversary with an open house March 25.
The Booth Center, on Lau’s fifth floor, opened in 2015 after a year-long renovation to create space for its rare materials, collections and archives. The open house showcased the Booth Center’s newest acquisitions to expand outreach with the university community.
Keith Gorman, associate university librarian of the Booth Center, said the open house event highlighted the Booth Center’s modern technology and resources, particularly its digital archives.
“Given the rapid changes in higher education, technology and in how research is conducted, I felt it was important to both mark the creation of this research hub, celebrate its collections and services, and consider how the Booth Family Center has itself had to change to meet the needs of its users,” Gorman wrote to The Hoya.
The open house featured prominent, new collections at the Center, including documents detailing Georgetown’s history of enslavement, records like those detailing the Georgetown University Student Association campaign of former President Bill Clinton (SFS ’68) and prints from a photojournalist.
John Zarillo, the Booth Center’s head of archival processing, said the Booth Center hopes to connect students with special collections they normally could not access.
“We always try to instill in students a sense of why we are showing materials to them, what the purpose is,” Zarillo told The Hoya. “We show them what connection we are trying to make to try to get students to think about their place in history.”
Zarillo said he prioritizes student and faculty engagement when selecting materials and items for the Center.
“We look for ‘enduring historic value’ — so we’re looking at things that we think are going to be, most importantly, used now,” Zarillo said. “Things that we faculty members are teaching about, whose classes are coming in and using primary sources — we focus on that.”
Gorman said the Booth Center’s archives supplement faculty and student research, including special class sessions focusing on themes like Georgetown’s history of enslavement or art from underrepresented communities.
“We have worked to engage faculty and encourage the use of our space and collections in instruction,” Gorman wrote. “The curators, archivists and librarians in Booth have sought to customize classes and to acquire items and collections that support instruction and student research.”
Zarillo said the Booth Center expanded its classroom activities over the past decade to involve more faculty, allowing professors to bring students to the Booth Center to look at materials.
“Classroom instruction is always growing,” Zarillo said. “That’s a result of outreach efforts from the staff, seeing what classes fit with our collections and building relationships with faculty members. The word spread that it’s a good way to engage students with primary sources and have them do a little field trip.”
Gorman added that the open house exhibitions emphasize the Booth Center’s increasing engagement with underrepresented scholarship.
“The Center has also sought to deepen existing collection strengths as well as identify new collecting areas such as African-American literature and history, literary works written by women, artistic works by under-represented communities, human rights, and women’s activism in the Global South,” Gorman wrote.
Harriette Hemmasi, dean of the library, said the Booth Center has supported Georgetown’s efforts to reconcile with its legacy of slavery.
“The Booth Center is a critical partner in the University’s initiatives to understand and respond to Georgetown’s role in the injustice of slavery and the legacies of enslavement segregation in our nation,” Hemmasi wrote to The Hoya. “Staff affiliated with the Booth Center regularly participate in campus-based initiatives and engage with members of the Descendant and Jesuits communities, local schools, organizations, and community members.”
Gorman said the Booth Center increases accessibility to rare materials, centering communities in research.
“By increasing the ways people can access our collections, we are fostering a culture that democratizes the writing of history and empowers individuals and communities to tell their own story,” Gorman wrote. “I believe these efforts will ultimately lead to more support in the areas of collection development, research support, and community exhibitions and programming.”
