IN DEPTH
Connecting town and gown through the library
How to help a community explore its slave-trading history: Lesley English, Head of Library Engagement at Lancaster University Library, explains how the library plays a key role in building bridges between town and gown.
FROM its epicentre in Minneapolis USA, the Black Lives Matter move- ment led to demonstrations in towns and cities across the world. One was Lancaster, where protests led to the formation of the Lancaster Black History community group.
At the same time a more bureaucratic revo-
lution was being set in motion at Lancaster University Library by its fi ve-year vision – The Library Towards 20251
. This aimed
to put the “Library at the heart of Lancaster University’s community, local and global. We connect, we innovate, we include.” A paragraph from the University and LBH’s joint research project2
explains the
value off ered by these two movements working together and the environment in which this work is taking place: “One of the problems with how we learn history at school and beyond, is that it is often segre- gated into distinct blocks – that is we might study the Atlantic slave trade or the history of the industrial revolution at school, but we tend do so separately. What we miss is the crucial connections ... We believe making these connections can revolutionise the ways people think about place, commu- nity and belonging in the present. These omissions, silences, secrets and gaps are particularly evident in how we learn about local history — if we learn about it at all. “As chair of LBH Geraldine Onek recently
refl ected, she learnt about the slave trade while studying at secondary school in Lan- caster but was never taught that the square
28 INFORMATION PROFESSIONAL
Lesley English is Head of Library Engagement at Lan- caster University Library.
she was walking through every day on her way to school, Lindow Square, was named after a slave trader. William Lindow lived in a house near the site of the school, the same house, built and lavishly furnished from the profi ts of slavery business, a house we now also know was also the likely residence of a black servant called John Chance. There is currently no way of ‘seeing’ this history. This absence of knowledge of local history can create shocking oversights”.
Recognised In this article I will highlight our work with LBH, exploring the initiatives developed in collaboration with the group. These provided a template for working with other communities and groups locally. They are initiatives that could be of interest beyond Lancaster. This was acknowledged when they were included in our 2022 submission for the Times Higher Education Awards
April-May 2023
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