Shaneé Yvette Murrain: Curating Powerful Materials (and Narratives!) from and for Black Women

In this episode of Badass Black Girl, M.J. talks with Shaneé Yvette Murrain, who builds and promotes online collections that reflect our shared cultural heritage with the 4,000+ libraries, museums, and archives across the country. Shaneé also designs technology to make collections available through the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA). She stewarded partnerships and curation for the Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection. M.J. asks Shaneé how she faces the challenges of making sure that more than one story is told. She asks Shaneé about the process of selecting materials for libraries, and how the pandemic has challenged librarians to reach those who may not have digital access during quarantine. They also discuss what Shaneé is reading, and the moment she knew she wanted to become a librarian. They also talk about the special skills a librarian needs and what’s next for her. They end the conversation by discussing what Shaneé thinks makes a badass Black girl.

Shaneé Yvette Murrain leads outreach to promote DPLA’s unique value and engage over 4,000 cultural heritage institutions to make millions of materials from a national network of state/regional digital libraries, bringing together digitized and born-digital content from across the country to a single access point for end-users and an open platform for developers. Shaneé stewards partnerships with sub-grantees and the curation of educational content for the Black Women’s Suffrage Digital Collection, funded by Pivotal Ventures, a Melinda Gates company.