Report & Summary from ESS Hands-On Workshop for Black European Research Resources: Sessions 1 & 2 on Aug. 6 & 20, 2021

The ESS Forum in June 2021 on “Researching the Black European Experience” introduced the challenges of searching for information about Black Europeans in both European and North American contexts. Vast amounts of primary and secondary sources exist that are related to the Black European experience, but special skills and insight are needed to track them down. In addition to scholarly articles and monographs and materials in university collections, important research data await in government records, foundations, Black organizations, and a wide array of public and private archives throughout Europe.

One of ESS’ goals is to create and maintain research resources that are practical and useful, particularly in supporting research into European topics. ESS members/research librarians worked with scholars specializing in Black European research questions to create Black European Research Guides for the ESS website.

This workshop for librarians and information professionals consisted of two 2-hour sessions, with two weeks for each small group to work independently on research guides for their topic.