Through the large double doors of Founders Library, to the right, down the hall, tucked away in the left corner lives the Moorland-Springarn Research Center. Home to the largest repository of documentation of the global black experience, Moorland-Springarn celebrates its 50th year of operation this year after becoming a Research Center in 1973.

MSRC provides scholarship and employment opportunities to over 20 undergraduate and graduate students across several colleges at Howard. Archives, Manuscripts, Prints and Photographs, and the MRSC Library are the several departments that make up the most comprehensive collection of black history in the world. 

Zoé Coker works in the archival department, based in a small room in the G-level hallway that connects Founders and UGL. 

The ‘processing’ room is where Coker and fellow interns spend most of their time. 

The pair of glasses on the interns’ desks and the magnifying glass lying on top of ripped photos are the perfect representation of the work that goes into preserving “the legacy of the global black experience.”

The space isn’t as glamorous as the imagination permits. 

Boxes filled with manilla envelopes sit on top of each other, covering the wooden walls. Miscellaneous, visually aging photographs of ‘Old Howard’ lie around the room. Random remnants of Howard University history, such as the only remaining Hilltop Newspaper Stand, sit in the nooks and crannies. 

There’s just enough room for each intern’s desk and a small walkway in between each pile of files. Though packed to the brim, the room has character. The history it houses can be felt through the walls. 

Coker’s work is tedious but crucial to the digitization process. 

“Archival processing is everything that happens before a collection is made digitally and publicly available, so that pertains to authentication, labeling, relabeling, and developing written procedures for their overall preservation,” says the Texas native.

Each of Coker’s days consists of “a lot of labeling and relabeling.”

Not only is the student archivist preserving history but she’s apart of it. 

The MSRC officially launched the Black Press Archives Digitization Project in November, which will preserve and publish over 100,000 newspapers from the United States, Africa, and the diaspora digitally.  

This is not lost on Coker, especially during Black History Month. 

“I see a lot of things that would otherwise go unseen. So I feel pretty special to like have that opportunity.”

As an African-American studies major, Coker feels like “sometimes black studies at Howard kind of seems like theory first before contextualizing black history.”

Job opportunities and the resources available in the library center allow interns, faculty, and other students to apply what they’re studying. “It's contextualizing the theories and conclusions that we have in current day,” says the student. “It’s situating them in a context that you can very much pinpoint across time.”

The MRSC recently relaunched its monthly newsletter, entitled “The Moorland,” and revamped its Instagram in hopes of keeping the HU Community up to date on the work happening in the library center. 

This month, they hosted “Moorland Mondays” where they spotlighted each department. 

As an intern, Coker hopes these interactive initiatives will further engage the student body.

“People don’t realize how important library services are,” says Coker. “There wouldn’t be a university without the library center. I would hope from these initiatives to publicize Moorland and Founders more, people just feel more comfortable just coming in with I don't know, curiosity? I think sometimes library spaces or resource spaces can be intimidating but you’re literally supposed to come in here when you’re confused.”

Cover 2 Cover was unable to get in contact with other interns however, their excitement about the work they’re doing is obvious in January’s newsletter. 

One intern says “being able to be a part of something that is so important, not only for future generations, but also for our ancestors who worked so hard."

Another intern, Justina Blanco, agrees. "I am excited to be part of preserving this invaluable source of Black community so that we can build off of the incredible work of Black journalists who have left us real-time connections to our ancestor's experiences.” 

The MSRC has over $2 million to allocate to the digitization of the Black Press Archives over the next five years and another $2 million to support new job opportunities in Archives and Manuscripts thanks to recent donations from the Jonathan Logan Family Foundation and the Mellon Foundation.

“I regard this grant as a reflection of growing public recognition of MSRC’s singular importance as custodian of the histories of individuals, organizations, and institutions, including Howard University, that are essential for interpreting and defining the experiences of Africans and people of African descent in the United States and across the globe,” says Dr. Benjamin Tolton, the director of MSRC.

“I feel like everybody just loves Old Howard and is very nostalgic of Old Howard and you can find a lot of that in Founder’s and Moorland,“ advises Coker.

All digitized collections are available at https://msrc.howard.edu/.