Expanding Public Knowledge

What is possible with a more complete and accessible cultural record?

An interior room filled with audio and video equipment
The Video Lab at the Library of Congress National Audio-Visual Center processes moving images recorded on aging VR2000 Quad and Sony ½” EIAJ VTRs. Photo: Stefan Ruiz for Mellon Foundation

A full and rich cultural and scholarly record is essential to understanding who we are. How we access and interact with books, archives, technology, and other artifacts is one of Mellon’s core interests as a grantmaker. By increasing equitable access to resources, and ensuring knowledge production and preservation are just, we can help foster a more informed, heterogeneous, and critically engaged society.

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WGBH Educational Foundation
Reel Talk: Saving America’s Public Media Matters More Than You May Know
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A gathering of African American men and boys seated at a formal dinner in the early 20th century
Shorefront NFP
The Nation’s First Municipal Reparations Program, Grounded in Black History
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South Asian American Digital Archive
Sharing Personal Stories from South Asian Communities
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Mellon Voices
Defining Public Knowledge with Program Officer Patricia Hswe
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Voice
America’s Saving Spaces
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Portrait of Emily Drabinsky
Emily Drabinski
Associate Professor
Queens College Graduate School of Library and Information Studies
Faulkner Morgan 2
LGBTQ+ in Lexington, Kentucky

Inside the Faulkner Morgan Archive

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Robert Morgan
Co-founder, Faulkner Morgan Archive

“I thought, ‘If something happens to me, nobody will know any of these stories or what any of this material was about.’ ”

Three people stand in a library with shelves on either side of the group. Together, they hold a book in front of their faces so they are not visible to the camera.
University of California at Los Angeles
Libraries Are Vital Community Spaces (and, They Need to Evolve)
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Headshot of Robert Montoya
Robert Montoya
Director, UCLA California Rare Book School and the Libraries, Justice, & Ethics Lab

“Libraries and librarians need to see themselves as active agents … who must support community participation and take a stand against social injustice.”

In black and white, three demonstrators from the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee stand together, holding hands
Duke University
Living History From One Generation to the Next with the SNCC Legacy Project
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