Meredith Evans (archivist) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Meredith Evans
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Meredith Evans (right) with David S. Ferriero, Archivist of the United States.jpg
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| Alma mater | Clark Atlanta University North Carolina State University University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill |
| Occupation | Archivist |
| Title | Director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum |
Meredith Rachelle Evans is an important archivist, historian, and scholar. She is the director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. An archivist is someone who collects and preserves historical records. Meredith Evans works to save and share the history of African Americans in the United States. This includes old records from churches in Atlanta. She also helps save social media posts from recent events, like protests in Ferguson, Missouri. This helps us understand history as it happens.
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Meredith Evans's Education
Meredith Evans went to Friends Seminary and finished high school in 1990. While there, she started a student group called Cultural Awareness Reaching Everyone (CARE). She also worked to make sure books by Black authors were part of the school's lessons.
She earned a Bachelor's degree in History from Clark Atlanta University. She also received a master's degree in library science from the same university. Later, she got another master's degree in public history from North Carolina State University.
Dr. Evans then earned her PhD in library science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her special focus was on archives. For her PhD, she studied how African American churches in Atlanta managed and kept their historical records.
She has also taught classes about libraries, archives, and information science. She taught at universities like Clark Atlanta University and Wayne State University.
Her Work as an Archivist
While working at the Atlanta University Center, Meredith Evans helped get a special grant. This money helped to make the papers of Martin Luther King Jr. available online. This means more people could study his important work.
As an archivist, she also helped teach a workshop about saving historical records. The workshop was called "The Lessons of Pilgrim Baptist Church: Preventing the Loss of Your Heritage." It taught people how to care for church archives. This was especially important after a fire destroyed the historic Pilgrim Baptist Church in Chicago in 2006.
Meredith Evans has held many important roles in her career. From 2008 to 2012, she was the Director of Special Collections at George Washington University. She then worked at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte and Washington University in St. Louis.
Documenting History as It Happens
Dr. Evans played a key role in creating "Documenting Ferguson." This was a special online collection of digital materials. It helped record the events and protests in Ferguson, Missouri, after the shooting of Michael Brown.
She has written about new ways archives can "collect the now." This means saving digital materials, like social media posts, as they are created. In 2014, she helped start "Documenting the Now." This project collects and saves Twitter posts about social justice. This helps researchers study these important topics in the future.
In November 2015, Dr. Evans became the director of the Jimmy Carter Library and Museum in Atlanta. She still holds this important position today.
In April 2017, she was chosen to be the Vice President of the Society of American Archivists. She then served as the president of this society from 2018 to 2020.
Awards and Honors
- Association of Research Libraries Leadership Fellowship (2013)
- Fellow of the Society of American Archivists (2024)
