By the Community, For the Community, From the Community: Inventorying Our Archive

Community Archiving Workshop (CAW) x TRUE Skool event held in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in December 2024. The workshop brought together community members, archivists, and preservationists from across the country to focus on safeguarding and storing historical audiovisual materials, within the Milwaukee Hip Hop Archive Project.

CAW worked with Milwaukee Hip Hop Archive Project to understand the scope of our collections and make decisions about preservation, digitization, and accessibility.

The Community Archiving Workshop is a model started in 2010 by archivist Mona Jimenez as a pre-conference activity at the Association of Moving Image Archivists (AMIA) conference. The program has expanded nationwide and internationally with support from various foundations and commissions.

The day concluded with a community conversation, fostering dialogue about the importance of archiving in preserving cultural heritage. Attendees left empowered with the tools and understanding necessary to initiate preservation efforts within their own communities, ensuring that the stories, voices, and media of the past remain accessible for future generations.

We had so much FUN & learned so much together!

Digitizing old Milwaukee Hip Hop tapes