{"id":1456,"date":"2020-02-29T19:49:08","date_gmt":"2020-02-29T19:49:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/?p=1456"},"modified":"2020-04-19T12:29:07","modified_gmt":"2020-04-19T12:29:07","slug":"illinois-newspaper-project-interviews-james-p-danky","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/illinois-newspaper-project-interviews-james-p-danky\/","title":{"rendered":"Illinois Newspaper Project Interviews James P. Danky"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>by<\/em> Jerilyn P. Tinio\u00a0 |\u00a0 Published: February 29, 2020<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-1636 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5.png\" alt=\"Graphic: Microphone icon, next to text: &quot;James P. Danky: On the Record.&quot; Faded newspaper titles wallpaper background.\" width=\"1680\" height=\"450\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5.png 1680w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5-300x80.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5-1024x274.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5-768x206.png 768w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/FINAL-BLOG-BANNER-5-1536x411.png 1536w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1680px) 100vw, 1680px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><\/h4>\n<p><em>In 2019, James P. Danky received the\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/ajha.wildapricot.org\/distinguished-service\"><em>American Journalism Historians Association\u2019s Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award<\/em><\/a>\u00a0<em>for his 40 years spent expanding and diversifying serial collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society. <\/em><em>Danky\u00a0is editor\u00a0of the indispensable reference tool, <\/em>African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998)<em> and an advisory board member for the Illinois Newspaper Project&#8217;s 2018 National Digital Newspaper Program grant cycle. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>The <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiscprintdigital.org\/\"><em>University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture<\/em><\/a><em>, in partnership with the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinhistory.org\/\"><em>Wisconsin Historical Society<\/em><\/a><em>, offers two annual research <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiscprintdigital.org\/fellowship\/\"><em>fellowship awards<\/em><\/a><em> in his honor. Applications for 2020 awards are <strong>due May 1<\/strong>. <\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>In this interview, Danky\u00a0speaks to\u00a0future stewards of the historical record about the research value of newspapers, how libraries can collect everything, and the importance of preserving diverse print for telling better history.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<h4>Table of Contents<\/h4>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"#newspapers\">On Newspapers<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#local_archives\">On Public Libraries as Local Print Archives<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#diversify\">On Diversifying Collections through Community Awareness<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#promoting\">On Promoting Non-Mainstream Materials<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#usage\">On Usage Statistics and Creative Networking<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#history\">On Preserving Diverse Print and Doing Better History<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"#digital\">On Digital Technologies and Print Culture<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div id=\"newspapers\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1551 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Copy-of-Danky-on-Newspapers_Final_Narrow-1.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Newspapers\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Copy-of-Danky-on-Newspapers_Final_Narrow-1.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Copy-of-Danky-on-Newspapers_Final_Narrow-1-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Copy-of-Danky-on-Newspapers_Final_Narrow-1-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Copy-of-Danky-on-Newspapers_Final_Narrow-1-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>IN<\/strong><strong>P<\/strong>: In the published version of your acceptance speech, you wrote \u201chistorians need to consult the widest possible array of sources, including any and all possible journalism.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn1\" name=\"_ftnref1\">[1]<\/a> Do you think journalistic sources are essential to the accurate telling of history?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>I do think journalistic sources are essential to the accurate telling of history. You need to read the local newspaper, the college newspaper, magazines, et cetera. I don\u2019t distinguish between newspapers and magazines. I know that\u2019s an important distinction for some. But I\u2019ve never met a researcher whose interests were articulated as that they wanted to see a newspaper on a subject, or for an area. They\u2019re interested in all the publications from there; it\u2019s an ecology of publications that exists in a particular community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP<\/strong>:\u00a0Is there anything special\u00a0about newspapers as sources for research?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:<\/strong>\u00a0Along the lines of what Clarence Brigham of the American Antiquarian Society said: if you can have only one source to do the history of a community, you want to choose newspapers, and that\u2019s simply because it\u2019s the source that has the greatest detail.<\/p>\n<p>The<em> Chicago Tribune\u00a0<\/em>doesn\u2019t devote much to, say, Niles, Illinois. It shouldn\u2019t. It has other issues it should highlight. But the local newspaper is the one that will have the greatest density of coverage. It\u2019s with the local, small-town, suburban newspapers\u2014that is, the non-national papers\u2014that you get the admonition to the editor to mention as many names as possible. It has a picture of the girls\u2019 volleyball team. They make sure they identify every single member of it because their parents are going to read the paper; team members are going to read the paper. They want to see their picture and then their name in the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p>That kind of density of coverage is what makes newspapers so essential, because you never know when the genuinely prosaic, repetitious kind of item is exactly what you\u2019re going to want to use. It\u2019s what sets newspapers apart from all other kinds of serials.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s why digitizing them and then providing full-text searching\u00a0\u00e0 la\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/chroniclingamerica.loc.gov\/\">Chronicling America<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/idnc.library.illinois.edu\/\">Illinois Digital Newspaper Collections<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>just changes everything. It used to be that you\u2019d have to go to a library that had the bound volumes of a paper. You\u2019d have to say: \u201cWell, the person I\u2019m interested in was active in approximately this period.\u201d You just have to start reading.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:<\/strong>\u00a0What else could provide that level of coverage? Government documents?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>Think about a community that you\u2019re familiar with. You can get a lot of information from large government data sets like the U.S. Census and others. These are great resources, but they really only get you the bare bones of the people that you\u2019re looking for. If you\u2019re looking for them collectively,\u00a0prosopographically, a collective biography of people who live in Niles\u2014sorry, just using that as my example today\u2014in order to really get beyond the sort of bare bones of their lives, when they were born, what their family structure was, you need to go look at the newspaper.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>Newspapers definitely seem like a good bet for genealogy research, but what other types of questions can they answer?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>Here\u2019s a question: \u201cWhen did the soap factory get built in Niles?\u201d There are lots of government documents, public records, that might lead you to that but there\u2019s probably a news story the day that Bubbles Forever opened in Niles, and on the people that were going to be hired to make soap. It\u2019ll amplify those kinds of things, and you\u2019d say, \u201cOh, but that would only be of interest to a local historian of Niles, Illinois, or historian of soap.\u201d But it could be of interest to a historian of technology, a historian of public health.<\/p>\n<p>In my career at the Wisconsin Historical Society, I selected and added to the collection over 75,000 serial titles. A bunch of newspapers, but then tons and tons of periodicals, from scholarly journals to zines. For each and every one of those titles, I made it a point to\u2014and, I did this very, very quickly\u2014make sure that I could answer a question that nobody ever asked me, except maybe once or twice: \u201cHow could this be used?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>My answer wasn\u2019t prescriptive. It\u2019s not how it\u00a0<em>should\u00a0<\/em>be used but just so that I had an answer in case anybody ever asked me. Because I collected a lot of very outrageous things.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:<\/strong>\u00a0This seems important for justifying including things in the collection.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: Absolutely, exactly right. It is important. There was one title that a cataloger, and I had the privilege of working with two wonderful catalogers, brought back to me and said, \u201cThis is not about anything.\u201d I said, \u201cI know, but I thought we should have at least one title in the collection that was not about anything, at all, kind of like <em>Seinfeld<\/em> [laughs]. But it\u2019s from Racine, Wisconsin. We should have that. Because we\u2019re the State Historical Society of Wisconsin.<a href=\"#_ftn2\" name=\"_ftnref2\">[2]<\/a> It\u2019s enough of a rationale, that it was produced here.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"local_archives\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1552 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Local-Archives_Final_Narrow.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Public Libraries as Local Print Archives\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Local-Archives_Final_Narrow.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Local-Archives_Final_Narrow-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Local-Archives_Final_Narrow-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Local-Archives_Final_Narrow-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong> What collection development philosophy do you think is required for building a truly diverse and comprehensive collection, keeping in mind, of course, that not everything can be collected?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: I disagree with the second part of your question. That is, I do think everything can be collected. And that makes me a follower of Antonio\u00a0Panizzi\u00a0of the British Library. He didn\u2019t\u00a0found\u00a0the British Library but he made it great in the nineteenth century and built the original building that now houses the British Museum. I do think it can happen.<\/p>\n<p>By that, I mean it needs to be a decentralized approach. If you are that librarian in Niles, Illinois, then everything that is produced in Niles should be in your library. You can\u2019t collect everything in Niles, but you can collect Nilesiana. You can have everything from Niles. Someone says: \u201cThat\u2019s a boring book.\u201d The response is: \u201cYes, but the imprint says Niles so that\u2019s why we have to have it.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Almost all public libraries have local history rooms so if you found something that was socially and politically repellent to a lot of people you can just shelve it there. That\u2019s fine. It doesn\u2019t have to go out on the\u00a0bookshelf. You don\u2019t have to goad the public and get yourself fired. But you can have those kinds of materials there. And you would be doing everybody a great service because they can count on you to have everything about Niles.<\/p>\n<p>Now, most public libraries do not do this. They don\u2019t think of themselves as a local print archive, and they should. Because in Champaign-Urbana you can\u2019t collect everything produced in Illinois because you won\u2019t even know about it. It\u2019s a big state and all the states are big. You have to depend on local public libraries, the same way that with the Illinois Newspaper Project a lot of titles that have been digitized, that will be digitized, have been collected by other libraries in Illinois.<\/p>\n<p>The mantra for librarians in more recent decades, maybe not today anymore, used to be \u201caccess, not ownership,\u201d and the first time I heard that, I said: \u201cWell, that\u2019s great, provided somebody owns it.\u201d There isn\u2019t going to be any access, otherwise.<\/p>\n<div id=\"diversify\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1553 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Diversify_Final_Narrow.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Diversifying Collections Through Community Awareness\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Diversify_Final_Narrow.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Diversify_Final_Narrow-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Diversify_Final_Narrow-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Diversify_Final_Narrow-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP<\/strong>: So, this would be to see public libraries as cultural heritage institutions. I&#8217;m not sure if public libraries see themselves as playing this sort of role in the community.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: They should. A community is only going to support so many cultural institutions and we want them to support the library because we\u2019re librarians. It\u2019s self-interest. But in most communities, there\u2019ll be a local history society. Public libraries should want to partner with those people. They can share the responsibilities of doing something like that.<\/p>\n<p>But when it comes to the print of the community, I think that it\u2019s best handled in the library. Librarians know what to do. It\u2019s, like, fun and easy,<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>and if you do it you will learn a lot more about your community. Because most of us, oh, even if we were born in the community, we went to school there, or whatever, it turns out that we don\u2019t know very much about the community.<\/p>\n<p>We know about our neighborhood, we know our commute routes, et cetera. But sometimes we don\u2019t even notice the neighborhood changes or the city changes. It happens all the time. And we come up with these preposterous notions that, I don\u2019t know, gosh, that Latinx communities only live in the Southwestern states. They aren\u2019t the dominant group in, say, Pilsen in Chicago. Okay, well, you know, if you get out more, you\u2019ll see that that\u2019s just not true. And if you drive through small towns in Wisconsin and Illinois you will find all kinds of\u00a0Latinx businesses, you just have to look for them. When you do that, you can also look and see if there are any publications and you pick them up and you put them in your library.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>I think what we\u2019re hearing from you is a call to action.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: Absolutely. You\u2019ve heard me correctly.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>But, besides information professionals, it seems that community members should also want and advocate for that. Is that right?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>But a lot of community members have\u2014well, the same way: if you go into a store, just any kind of store, and they don\u2019t have what you want. Do you go back to that same store and ask for it again?<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>[laughs] No.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>[laughs] No. Almost nobody does. So, consequently, community members, even those that produce these said publications, they may have gotten the unmistakable message that their work is not welcome in the public library. It\u2019s important to hold the mirror up to librarians and say: \u201cOkay, who are we?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>You know, I gave a lecture in Champaign-Urbana decades ago and I think the title of the lecture was actually, \u201cLibraries: They Would Have Been a Good Idea.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn3\" name=\"_ftnref3\">[3]<\/a> They need to be different than the ones we have and, by that, I think I want to start with the people who choose to become librarians. It\u2019s not an obvious calling or career path. But the kinds of people that become librarians, let\u2019s ask questions about them, how they\u2019re recruited, and what they think this is all about.<\/p>\n<p>A practical way of answering your question is to start with library education and say: \u201cOkay, what does U of I\u2019s library school teach and what does it advocate for?\u201d Well, it\u2019s not just a series of factoids or something; it\u2019s a whole outlook about what you\u2019re going to do. Because the only thing I know for sure about information is that it has radically changed in all ways, and it will change all over again in your career, the rest of my life, too. I mean, I\u2019ve watched it change. It\u2019s unbelievable.<\/p>\n<div id=\"promoting\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1554 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-PROMOTING_Final_Narrow.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Promoting Non-Mainstream Materials\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-PROMOTING_Final_Narrow.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-PROMOTING_Final_Narrow-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-PROMOTING_Final_Narrow-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-PROMOTING_Final_Narrow-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>Throughout your career, you didn\u2019t just collect these non-mainstream materials, you also promoted these materials to potential users.<\/p>\n<p>Any advice for those currently working in research libraries, or soon to be working in them, on effective ways to promote the use of non-mainstream materials?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>You promote them by constantly giving talks to library school students, or, when you\u2019re on the other side, when you have a professional job, to local library associations, ILA or WLA for Wisconsin, et cetera. I can\u2019t remember how many of those I gave, but it\u2019s\u00a0tons-aroonio.<\/p>\n<p>I arrived once at the Minnesota Library Association to talk about non-mainstream materials. I\u2019d never been to Rochester, Minnesota, where they were meeting, where the Mayo Clinic is. So, I just went to the public library, which was next to the convention center, and I used the phone book\u2014because it was that long ago\u2014and I talked to a reference librarian that was not very helpful. I picked up things on the free rack when there was an avalanche of print in those racks instead of the thin things they are today. And I used all examples of print in Rochester, Minnesota, a city I had never been to and had known nothing about, besides the Mayo Clinic.<\/p>\n<p>And I remember one of the lines I used was that if I was there, and I was developing community information sources, I noticed there are two or three Hmong churches listed under religion in the yellow pages. I said, \u201cYea, okay, that\u2019s interesting.\u201d So, you call them up and then you say, \u201cDo you publish anything?\u201d The person that you\u2019re speaking to will say, \u201cOh, yeah, but all of that\u2019s in Hmong.\u201d And, I\u2019ll say, \u201cWell, that\u2019s okay, we want that too. We want Hmong library materials in our library.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s how you address the Niles hardware store question. You have those materials there. They\u2019re not going to be, like, bestsellers or hot videos, but they can be in your local history collection, so that when someone says, \u201cI wonder who lived in Rochester, Minnesota in the 1980s?\u201d Well, the answer is that it includes Hmong people, and, \u201csee, we have these examples of their church bulletins and they don\u2019t take up very much room and they\u2019re free.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But you should show the community that you\u2019re interested in them, and then you catalog their materials under appropriate subject headings, as well as getting them to come in and help translate the materials for you, or you might try and use Google Translate, today.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP<\/strong>:\u00a0Are you saying\u00a0the best way to promote these materials is to make them available?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: Yeah, exactly. Your best public information source is the online catalog. I was about to say the card catalog; that\u2019s because I\u2019m old. And if someone comes up and says that this isn\u2019t cataloged well, then you ask, \u201cHow can it be better cataloged? How can we improve access?\u201d Because changing those things is pretty easy by comparison to when you had to pull all the cards and retype them.<\/p>\n<div id=\"usage\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1555 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Usage_Final_Narrow-1.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Usage Statistics and Creative Networking\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Usage_Final_Narrow-1.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Usage_Final_Narrow-1-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Usage_Final_Narrow-1-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Usage_Final_Narrow-1-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:<\/strong>\u00a0In the meantime, what if one of these items isn&#8217;t getting used? How do we justify keeping it? Should we be making the argument that it&#8217;ll get used in the future?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>:\u00a0 I do make that argument, that people will use it in the future, and we don\u2019t even fully understand which ways they might use it. I think the impulse to weed probably comes from a certain kind of perspective.<\/p>\n<p>If you need to create space, then go in the stacks,\u00a0go\u00a0in the Z\u2019s and get rid of all the commercially produced indices that have been superseded by electronic ones. Get rid of the New York Times Index. If you do that alone you\u2019ll probably clear dozens and dozens of shelves. It\u2019s a giant thing.<\/p>\n<p>And this can be done in the Niles public library too. You can have obscure materials that, for sure, don\u2019t get used right away. You have to ask some practical questions, like, \u201cHow much room are they taking up?\u201d I think that in most cases they don\u2019t take up all that much room. They don\u2019t impair the institution\u2019s ability to do the things that seem more pressing.<\/p>\n<p>Everybody can always do more. That\u2019s what I said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>So, be more creative, and don\u2019t use circulation or usage statistics to measure the value of an item?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>Don\u2019t use them in isolation. It\u2019s an opportunity to take advantage of something libraries do better than most groups, and that\u2019s to network. It\u2019s in our DNA. Every library is part of some various and multiple consortia.<\/p>\n<p>U of I Library has a campus consortium that it\u2019s part of, that\u2019s Main Library and all other libraries on campus. But it\u2019s also part of all the libraries in Illinois. And then it\u2019s, in turn, part of the libraries in the U.S. and around the world. It\u2019s a global institution. So, let\u2019s take advantage of that and let\u2019s not get hung up on how we can\u2019t have our serial collection grow from 20,000 to, I don\u2019t know, 40,000, because it just depends on what those other 20,000 titles would be. Maybe you could. You don\u2019t know. Not until you look into it. So just beware of anyone that tells you that one size fits all.<\/p>\n<p>Everything I\u2019m telling you will only get you in trouble, that\u2019s for sure. But everything that I\u2019m telling you are things I\u2019ve done. So it\u2019s not just theory, it\u2019s practice.<\/p>\n<div id=\"history\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1556 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-History_Final_Narrow.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Preserving Diverse Print and Doing Better History\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-History_Final_Narrow.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-History_Final_Narrow-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-History_Final_Narrow-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-History_Final_Narrow-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>In your introduction to\u00a0<em>African-American Newspapers and\u00a0Periodicals: A National Bibliography<\/em>, you suggested many periodicals published by historically underrepresented communities suffered from archival neglect and exclusionary collection development patterns favoring \u201cthe Great White Man view of history.\u201d<a href=\"#_ftn4\" name=\"_ftnref4\">[4]<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Is it fair to say that only a small fraction of these resources has been identified, located, and made accessible?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, that was obviously the rationale for doing the African American bibliography and to see it as a start. My late colleague Dick Newman said, \u201cJim, when you get done, we\u2019ll have a pretty good list to get started with.\u201d I just laughed; I said, \u201cThat\u2019s true.\u201d The bibliography is not an endpoint. You can really see that in the work of\u00a0Randall Burkett\u00a0and his colleagues at Emory.<a href=\"#_ftn5\" name=\"_ftnref5\">[5]<\/a> They have compiled a long list of titles that are NIDs, N-I-Ds (Not in\u00a0Danky\u2019s).<\/p>\n<p>Randall told me it\u2019s over 800 titles now, and that\u2019s a substantial percentage of the 6,500 or so that I identified, and it will only grow. But that\u2019s a good thing because it does two things: it reminds everyone that there\u2019s a world of black print out there that\u2019s not been identified or collected, and it urges others to go forth and identify and collect it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>Do you think there\u2019s a trend towards including more\u00a0diverse perspectives in the telling of history?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong> I do think there\u2019s been a giant flowering of African American historical scholarship, that\u2019s for sure. But probably, if you look at an area like Vietnamese or Hmong people in America, a sizable population, that we\u2019re just beginning to understand those communities in our country and we should make sure that we gather all those materials. It can\u2019t just be the job of UC Irvine to do that.<\/p>\n<p>There are other communities, in Minnesota, Wisconsin, California, Northern California, et cetera, maybe in Illinois. It\u2019s why the most important event for librarians will be the 2020 Census. Not just as citizens, but also to begin to get the numbers about who it is that lives in their service area. I think librarians will be surprised by who lives there, by ethnicity, by race, by economic status, all kinds of things. It will be important for librarians to look at those numbers and figure out how they can, in this case, collect materials to serve those communities.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP<\/strong>: In your introduction, you also observed that more recent historical scholarship reveals a \u201cdrive for more authentic and more particular voices.\u201d Can you speak more to that point?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: Good historians are going to bring out somebody who exemplifies whatever it is that they\u2019re interested in. Because, in fact, people who read history want to read about individuals. Today they won\u2019t all just be presidents and generals, they\u2019ll be other people, which is good because most of us are other people. They used to stop with presidents and generals.<\/p>\n<p>Take, for instance, the postmaster general of the United States. That\u2019s a boring job to read about. They\u2019ll say: \u201cHe was an important person that was appointed to that position.\u201d That\u2019s fine. But that\u2019s pretty uninteresting. Let\u2019s talk about what it meant to get mail service across the country, if that\u2019s our interest, and how that was carried out, or, the role of unionization, public employees. There are a zillion different things that can make that interesting.<\/p>\n<p>But the uninteresting way that was presented for decades and decades was that there was a consensus about things in America, when we\u2019re a country where there\u2019s never been a consensus about anything. To show the diversity of opinion and experience within America definitely leads to better history.<\/p>\n<div id=\"digital\"><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<h3><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1557 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Digital_Final_Narrow.png\" alt=\"Heading Graphic: On Digital Technologies and Print Culture.\" width=\"1500\" height=\"201\" srcset=\"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Digital_Final_Narrow.png 1500w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Digital_Final_Narrow-300x40.png 300w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Digital_Final_Narrow-1024x137.png 1024w, https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/70\/2020\/02\/Danky-on-Digital_Final_Narrow-768x103.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1500px) 100vw, 1500px\" \/><\/h3>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>Digital preservation initiatives seem to be a promising way to showcase this diversity. But do you see any pitfalls with relying on digital technologies to help the work and mission of research libraries?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky<\/strong>: In terms of reliability, no. I don\u2019t think so. I think it is a given that the digital world is so overwhelmingly integrated into our lives. No, I think we\u2019re okay. I think one of the challenges will be for materials that are behind paywalls versus those that are free. The difference between free and paid materials is a very important one. The library\u2019s job is to help make information freely available if they can; to maximize the amount of things that are free.\u00a0And I\u2019m on both sides of the issue simultaneously. I want things to be free, and when I edit things for ProQuest, I want it to be paid for so I get\u00a0royalties. How\u2019s that?<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP:\u00a0<\/strong>Yes, it seems like the funding has to come from somewhere.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:\u00a0<\/strong>Exactly. There are things I want to see happen, and no public source is providing the money, and ProQuest might, so we pitch it to them. But public initiatives like\u00a0the National Digital Newspaper Program\u00a0let\u00a0you put more Polish, and now Czech and Hungarian, newspapers online. Private companies aren\u2019t going to do it because they don\u2019t think there\u2019s a market. But public initiatives can do things for which there\u2019s not an obvious market, or a large market.<\/p>\n<p><strong>INP: <\/strong>You were cofounder of the Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, now known as the Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture. What is a central question addressed by the history of print culture that you think we should be asking ourselves in view of the proliferation of online publishing?<\/p>\n<p><strong>Danky:<\/strong> A central question is, \u201cWhat is the experience of print and the digital for people?\u201d It\u2019s reception theory. There\u2019s a whole group of active scholars interested in how print gets used.<\/p>\n<p>What the center has as one of its hallmarks is that we\u2019ve always been extremely democratic when we considered print. We didn\u2019t say, \u201cIt\u2019s enough to read the Declaration of Independence or the book-of-the-month club,\u201d not that there\u2019s anything wrong with those things. But you tell me what kind of print you\u2019re interested in. Polish American newspapers? Cool. Zines? Fine. It doesn\u2019t matter what it is, you make the case for it.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em>Make the case for your print culture research project and apply for the <\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiscprintdigital.org\/fellowship\/\"><em>2020 James P. Danky Fellowship\u00a0<\/em><\/a><em>with the\u00a0<\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.wiscprintdigital.org\/\"><em>University of Wisconsin-Madison\u2019s Center for the History of Print and Digital Culture<\/em><\/a><em> and the <\/em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wisconsinhistory.org\/\"><em>Wisconsin Historical Society.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>This interview was edited for length and clarity.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<h4><strong>Other bibliographies edited by Danky:<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Danky, J. P. (Ed.). (1974). <em>Undergrounds: A Union List of Alternative Periodicals in Libraries of the US and Canada.<\/em> Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin.<\/p>\n<p>Danky, J.P., Hady, M.E., Strache, N.E., &amp; Noonan, B.C. (Eds.). (1982). <em>Women&#8217;s Periodicals and Newspapers from the 18th Century to 1981: A Union List of the Holdings of Madison, Wisconsin Libraries<\/em>. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall.<\/p>\n<p>Danky, J.P. &amp; Hady, M.E. (Eds.). (1984). <em>Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828-1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record, and Holdings<\/em>. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Further reading:<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p>Baughman, J.L., \u00a0Danky, J.P., &amp; Ratner-Rosenhagen. J. (Eds.). (2015). <em>Protest on the Page: Essays on Print and the Culture of Dissent Since 1865<\/em>. Madison, WI: The University of Wisconsin Press.<\/p>\n<p>Danky, J.P. &amp; Wiegand, W.A. (Eds.) (1998). <em>Print Culture in a Diverse America<\/em>. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press.<\/p>\n<p>Danky, J.P. &amp; Wiegand, W.A. (Eds.). (2006). <em>Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries<\/em>. Madison, WI : University of Wisconsin Press.<\/p>\n<p>Danky, J.P. &amp; Kitchen, D. (Eds.). (2009). <em>Underground Classics: The Transformation of Comics into Comix<\/em>. Harry N. Abrams.<\/p>\n<p>Pawley, C. &amp; Wiegand, W.A. (Eds). (2008). Special Issue: Alternative Print Culture: Social History and Libraries [Special issue]. <em>Library Trends, 56<\/em> (3).<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h4><strong>Notes:<\/strong><\/h4>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref1\" name=\"_ftn1\">[1]<\/a> Danky, J.P. (2019). \u201cExploding the Canon of Journalism History.\u201d <em>Historiography in Mass Communication<\/em>, <em>5<\/em>(5), pp. 27-33.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref2\" name=\"_ftn2\">[2]<\/a> The State Historical Society of Wisconsin changed its name to Wisconsin Historical Society in 2001.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref3\" name=\"_ftn3\">[3]<\/a> Talk given by Danky April 17, 1997 at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Published in Sanford Berman and James Danky (Eds.), <em>Alternative Library Literature 1996-97, <\/em>Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1998.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref4\" name=\"_ftn4\">[4]<\/a> Danky, J.P. (1998). \u201dIntroduction: The Black Press and White Institutions.\u201d In Danky, J.P. &amp; Hady, M.E. (Eds.), <em>African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National <\/em><em>Bibliography<\/em>, pp. xxxi-xxxv. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ftnref5\" name=\"_ftn5\">[5]<\/a> Burkett, Randall K. (2008).\u201cThe Joy of Finding Periodicals \u2018Not in Danky\u2019.\u201d<em>Library Trends<\/em>, <em>56<\/em>(3), pp. 601-617.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>by Jerilyn P. Tinio\u00a0 |\u00a0 Published: February 29, 2020 &nbsp; &nbsp; In 2019, James P. Danky received the\u00a0American Journalism Historians Association\u2019s Distinguished Service to Journalism History Award\u00a0for his 40 years spent expanding and diversifying serial collections at the Wisconsin Historical Society. Danky\u00a0is editor\u00a0of the indispensable reference tool, African-American Newspapers and Periodicals: A National Bibliography (Cambridge: [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":544,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1456","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-image"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/544"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1456"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1671,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1456\/revisions\/1671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1456"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1456"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.library.illinois.edu\/illinoisnewspaperproject\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1456"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}