The University Libraries has received a Venture Fund grant from the Association of Research Libraries (ARL). The $15,000 award will support “On the Books: Jim Crow and Algorithms of Resistance.” Founded in 2019, the Venture Fund supports the work of ARL member organizations that are advancing key priorities of the association.
The “On the Books” project team, led by Amanda Henley, head of Digital Research Services, is creating a text corpus of more than 100 years of North Carolina session laws. The team is using machine learning to identify Jim Crow laws within that set.
The team plans on releasing this corpus as a publicly accessible resource for general historical and legal research. They are developing a project website that attempts to list and contextualize North Carolina segregation laws. Using these resources, the team plans to create an open education resource module for learning communities at the University and beyond.
This project was developed thanks to a grant from Collections as Data: Part to Whole, funded by the Mellon Foundation through the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. The Venture Fund award will allow the team to continue developing “On the Books” over the coming year.
