Morna Gerrard Wins MAC’s Margaret Cross Norton Award
Georgia State University’s Women’s Collection Archivist Morna Gerrard received this year’s Margaret Cross Norton Award for the best article in the previous two volumes of Archival Issues, for her “Hear Them Roar: Challenge and Collaboration in Putting the Georgia Women’s Movement Oral History Project on the Web.” Published by the Midwest Archives Conference (MAC), Archival Issues is considered one of the two premier journals of archival literature in the United States.
Morna has been the Women’s Collection Archivist for the last seven and a half years. In that time she has acquired numerous collections for the University, revitalized the “Diane L. Fowlkes Spring Event,” and established the annual “Shero of the Year” award. Morna’s award-winning article looks at the challenges technology presents in providing online access to oral histories.
Special Collections and Archives Department has been a pioneer in building oral history collections, and the Georgia Government Documentation Project (GGDP) and the Women’s Collection oral histories are among the department’s most heavily used research resources. The oral histories in the Women’s Collection include not only the Georgia Women’s Movement Oral History Project, more than 50 interviews documenting the activities of leaders and foot-soldiers in the second wave of the women’s movement, but more recently have expanded to include the Activist Women Oral History Project. This new project presents interviews with politicians such as Kathy Ashe and Nan Orrock, grass-roots activists and activist leaders such as Amy Ray, Stephanie Davis and Deborah Richardson.