Scholarly Collaboration & Programming

From the Director

Donna Gabaccia Dear Friends,

Life is all about change, and this winter both the IHRC and I are about to begin another big transition. This will be my last semester as Director of the IHRC. Although I’ll miss the view from my office window, my co-workers, and the constant bustle of activity and programs around me, I am also beginning to look forward to my own retirement, and I have chosen to devote my final years as an historian to completing several books that I’ve repeatedly put aside while sitting at the helm of the IHRC.

I’m very proud of what we’ve accomplished here in Andersen Library over the past 7 years, and I’m very happy with the many new friends I’ve made while working to guarantee that the IHRC continued to change and grow in the years after Rudy Vecoli’s retirement. Rudy was Director for almost 40 years; none of his successors are likely to come anywhere close to that record. Certainly I have not. I will be working closely with the College of Liberal Arts to guarantee a smooth transition to my own successor, just as Rudy did for me.

It’s also wonderful to report that I won’t be a “lame duck” director for the semester ahead. We have a full program of seminar presentations and a workshop as part of our Global REM seminar. Our wonderful Sheeko project is now “live” and can be viewed at: http://blog.lib.umn.edu/ihrc/sheeko/2011/08/ Those who wish to view the full videos of these unique interviews with Somali youth will have access to them here in Andersen Library. I also continue to work with Sonia Cancian (Concordia University Montreal) and Daniel Necas (here at the IHRC) to develop the Digitizing Immigrant Letters Project: http://ihrc.umn.edu/research/dil/index.html In June we’ll co-host a workshop for central European scholars and archivists with the Center for Austrian Studies and the University of Vienna—and we’ll travel to Vienna for the event! The Gender Ratios and International Migration Project is also now coming to conclusion: a special section of the journal Social Science History will publish articles based on project research in Summer 2012, and Katharine Donato (Vanderbilt University) and I will be busy writing our book on the feminization of international migration.

There is always something interesting going on at the IHRC; we hope you will join us or just stop by to visit in the months ahead,

Sincerely,

Donna Gabaccia
Director

Scholarly Collaboration & Programming

From the Director

Related Links

Events