Expanding Access: The Beulah M. Davis Special Collections Goes Digital

The Beulah M. Davis Special Collections Department, housed in Morgan State University’s Earl S. Richardson Library, has embraced the latest digital technologies to preserve and share Morgan’s rich history with a broader audience. With the support of a $500,000 Title III HBCU Part F grant awarded in 2020, the Davis Room has successfully digitized several key historical collections, making them accessible online for students, researchers, and the global community.

Digitized Collections Now Available Online

The digitization efforts have prioritized key publications and archival materials, offering unparalleled insight into Morgan’s past. Some of the materials now available digitally include:

• The Promethean – More than 50 full-color editions of Morgan’s yearbook, spanning 1937 to 2019, including the earliest edition, The Spencerian (1937).
• The Spokesman – Over 250 issues of Morgan’s student-produced newspaper from 1944 to 2012 before it transitioned to an online platform.
• The Morgan Mirror – A faculty-produced newspaper from the 1980s and 1990s, with more than 40 issues available.
• The Morgan State University Women collection – A curated selection of newsletters, programs, flyers, and archival materials documenting the contributions of Morgan’s women from 1939 to 2019.

These collections can be accessed through the Davis Room website’s Digital Collections section. The next phase of digitization will include Morgan State University course catalogs dating back to the late 1800s, offering valuable historical context for academic program development.

Bridging History and Innovation

This initiative is part of the Davis Room’s commitment to creating an open-access digital repository for Morgan-related materials. The project also provides cross-disciplinary learning opportunities, allowing students and faculty to apply classroom theory in a real-world archival setting. As digitization, data mining, and information retrieval become increasingly central to higher education and research, Morgan students will gain hands-on experience in these emerging fields.

“This effort represents a transformative step toward modernization and accessibility,” said Dr. Ida E. Jones, associate director of Special Collections and University Archivist. “By digitizing these invaluable collections, we ensure that Morgan’s rich history is preserved and made readily available to anyone, anywhere, at any time. This initiative empowers students, researchers, and the broader public with unrestricted access to critical historical narratives.”

The grant also enabled the addition of a new staffer. The Davis Room welcomed Ms. Melissa Prunty Kemp, a seasoned digital librarian, certified archivist, and English professor who has played a pivotal role in enhancing content accessibility and usability. Soon, the Davis Room will also introduce academic internships for students interested in archival processes in both analog and digital formats.

For more information about the Beulah M. Davis Special Collections and its Digital Collections, please contact davis.room@morgan.edu or visit library.morgan.edu/davis#2010.