WSSU Archives Presents the new James A. Gray Lecture Series Website

The Winston-Salem State University Archives would like to present the new James A. Gray Lecture Series site as a part of the Archives' Digital Library. Each speaker has a set of photographs, videos clips, a program or brochure from their specific engagement. The site itself can be searched by name, year and soon by a drop box to find a particular speaker.


The James A. Gray Lecture Series is a lecture series which brings in outstanding speakers from academia, public life and theology scholars to discuss topics such as gender and spirituality, the African-American family and the younger generations living spiritually in a secular society. These discussions and lectures have brought great conversation and ideas to contemplate to the campus of Winston-Salem State University since 1992 until today through an endowment from James A. Gray and we present them to you in our new digital library.

James A. Gray Lecture Series Collection

WSSU Archives Material to Appear on PBS' "The History Detectives"

PBS’ television show “The History Detectives” will be airing an episode about the Winston-Salem Sit-ins which took place at the Woolworth lunch counters downtown on Liberty St. Several former WSSU (then Winston-Salem Teacher’s College) students, including Carl Matthews, Jefferson Diggs and Victor Johnson, Jr. took part in the protests.  The protest reached its climax on February 23, 1960 when several students were arrested for the non-violent actions.  The episode will air August 7^th at 8 PM Eastern.

For more on the show, please visit PBS - History Detectives - Woolworth Sign

Society of North Carolina Archivist Conference, 2012

The registration for the Annual SNCA meeting is now available.  The conference will be held in Greensboro at UNCG, and will be 3 days of great programming from March 28-30.

The WSSU Archives will be participating in a talk on Thursday, about having users be responsible for some of the metadata work with digital collections.

Please take a moment to look over the program and registration as there is something for everyone.
SNCA Program and Registration

WSSU Building Exhibit and Digital Collection

The WSSU Archives is currently running an exhibit on the history of the WSSU Campus.  On display are some of the material from the first buildings on campus as well as a streaming photograph display.  This exhibit is running in conjunction with the newest collection added to the Digital Library.

The WSSU Building Collection contains the groundbreaking and building dedication programs.  These programs talk about the naming as well as the events surrounding the dedication or groundbreaking ceremonies.

Two Collections Added to the WSSU Digital Library

Two more collections were recently added to the Digital Library.  The first collection added is the WSSU Published, "Journal of Best Practices in Health Professions Diversity".  This journal is produced by the the WSSU School of Health Sciences and there are currently 4 issues available online.  More issues are being scanned and will be available in the near future.

The second collection added is the student created newspaper, the "News Argus".  The Archives has made available every issue currently in their holdings.  The run covers the years 1962-2011 and is text searchable.  The Archives would like to thank the staff at the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center for scanning the "News Argus" as well as the Yearbooks.  Both collections wouldn't have been available as fast as they were if it weren't for their great work.

WSSU Archives Launches its digital collections in the new Digital Library

After months of scanning, uploading, and adding metadata, the WSSU Archives has finally launched its new Digital Library.  Using cloud technology, the Digital Library allows the Archives to share documents, photographs, and movies.  Attached to each image, movie, or document are metadata fields describing the collection it came from as well as the item itself.  Keywords were added so that the items are searchable within the collections level.

The first three collections available on our new Digital Library are: The WSSU Yearbooks, Commencement Programs, and Teaching Portfolios.

The Yearbook collection was scanned and made text searchable by the North Carolina Digital Heritage Center.  The Yearbooks cover the years of 1935-2010.

The Commencements Programs (1926-2007) list the names of graduates as well as any award winners for that graduation year.

The Teaching Portfolios are a collection of WSSU Faculty portfolios that were submitted for many of the teaching and service awards available at the university and within North Carolina.

Please visit the newly uploaded collections and feel free to leave a comment here or at the Digital Library with your thoughts and ideas.  Thank you and keep an eye out for our next collection to be uploaded.  The next collection will be the student newspaper The News Argus.

Tweets from the Civil War

In memory of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War, the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources will be using Twitter and a Blog to bring back to life the voices of the past.  Each day the NCDCR will be posting a tweet from a North Carolina primary source.  The blog will expand on certain tweets so that the full resource can be viewed outside the constraints of the 140 character limit of Twitter.  This will be a four year project with the hopes of sharing the impact of the Civil War on the people of North Carolina from their own words.

Follow the twitter account at - @civilwartime
The corresponding blog - CivilWarTime

For more information on the NCDCR and the project please visit their newsroom.