Departmental News

Posted:  Oct 12, 2020 - 10:00am

The Newberry is pleased to announce that Dr. Blaire Topash-Caldwell (UNM PhD, 2020) has joined the library’s staff as Mellon Public Humanities Fellow. In this role, Topash-Caldwell will contribute to a multiyear project to expand access to the Newberry’s extensive Indigenous Studies collection. Supported by a generous grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the project will align the Newberry’s institutional policies and actions with Native perspectives, cultural practices, and knowledge systems.

Topash-Caldwell comes to the Newberry from the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Nation’s Department of Language and Culture, where she served as the tribe’s first archivist.

A citizen of the Pokagon Band, Topash-Caldwell, has worked to make relevant archival materials more accessible to Pokagon tribal members and collaborated with several institutions such as the National Archives in Chicago and the Eiteljorg Museum to make this possible. As part of this effort, she launched, managed, and developed content for a tribally-based content management system called Wiwkwébthëgen, expanding outreach and accessibility for the many tribal members who live beyond the Pokagon Band’s service area. Read more