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| A love of history was instilled
in Toby Graham as a child when his father, an education
professor at James Madison University, read Virginia history
textbooks as bedtime stories to Graham and his younger
sister. (Photo by Paul Efland) |
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Digital library director’s career weds his love of history,
archives
By Jean Cleveland
jclevela@uga.edu
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In 1959, Alabama state librarian Emily Reed refused to
remove the children’s book A Rabbits’ Wedding
from her library in the face of demands of state senators,
who argued that “this and many other books like
it should be taken off the shelf and burned.” The
reason for their objection: The groom was depicted as
a black bunny and the bride a white one. Reed’s
stand ultimately cost her her job.
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| FACTS |
| P. TOBY GRAHAM |
| Director, Digital Library
of Georgia
Ph.D., library
and information -studies, 1998, University of
Alabama at Tuscaloosa
Master of Library Service, 1994, University of
Alabama at Tuscaloosa
M.A., history,
1993, University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
B.S., social
science and history, 1991, James Madison University
Years at UGA:
1-1/2 |
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That anecdote is included in Toby Graham’s book
examining race relations in the South. A
Right to Read: Segregation and Civil Rights in Alabama’s
Public Libraries, 1900–1965 won four awards
as a dissertation, including two national citations. Published
in 2002 by the University of Alabama Press, the book earned
Graham the 2004 Alabama Author Award for Non-Fiction,
which he received this past April.
“In part it was a test to see whether I could do
it or not—a self-indulgent intellectual enterprise,”
Graham says. “But the implications for others—the
non-intellectual human rewards meant more to me than any
intellectual validation.”
In response to Graham’s research and letters commending
Reed’s courageous stand in 1959, the Freedom to
Read Foundation chose her for their 2000 Roll of Honor
Award, and the same year the American Library Association
executive council issued a resolution recognizing her
example.
A love of history was instilled in Graham as a child when
his father, an education professor at James Madison University,
read Virginia history textbooks as bedtime stories to
Graham and his younger sister.
After earning a degree in history from James Madison,
Graham went to the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa
to pursue graduate studies, where he accepted a year-long
assistantship in a special collections library.
“I was initially highly unenthusiastic,” he
says, “until I saw first-hand the connection between
history and archives. That’s when the light came
on. That’s when I knew I had found a career that
would be richly rewarding.”
After completing a master’s degree in history, Graham
earned a master of library science. In 1995, the library
dean approached him about leading a digitization project.
“I had never seen a scanner before, but I said,
‘That sounds perfect.’ It was a small project,
but it changed my outlook. It was an important event in
my career,” he says. “I saw an opportunity
to promote use of primary source collections by making
them available online.”
Joining the special collections library at the University
of Southern Mississippi, Graham eventually became head
of the department and began its digital program, focusing
on collection strengths, including the civil rights movement
and children’s literature.
When the director’s position at the Digital Library
of Georgia opened, Graham saw an opportunity to lead a
statewide collaborative program.
“That’s exactly what I want to do with my
career and to do it in a Southern state is important to
me,” he says. “It was an opportunity that
was hard to ignore.”
Graham currently is overseeing a redesign of the DLG Web
site, created when the digital library consisted of only
a few databases.
“We have 25 databases
now and several more on the way,” he says. “We
need to re-conceptualize and create a design that connects
with digitization projects across the state that document
Georgia history and life.The collaborative nature is what
attracted me to the job—to help build a statewide
digital library program.”
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