The library is collecting important source materials, including books and magazines, photographs, video and audio productions, microforms, and internet website indexes to enhance the study of African-American history in general and civil rights history in particular. Building on interviews already archived in the library, the Nashville Room staff administers an ongoing Civil Rights Oral History Project to record the experiences and memories of people who took part in or witnessed the historic events of the 1950s and 1960s. The addition of private collections of letters and papers from central figures in the civil rights era will eventually make the Nashville Public Library a key site for research on this subject and period.

Programs and Services
A video presentation room and a classroom adjacent to the Civil Rights Room make an array of materials available to individuals and groups of up to forty people. Also readily at hand are the comprehensive archives of the Nashville Banner, published in the city from 1876 to 1998. Exhibits, lectures, panel discussions and other special events are scheduled frequently by staff of the Nashville Room, which administers the Civil Rights Collection. The library’s conference center, with its 240-seat auditorium and meeting rooms, add further to the resources available for civil rights study, programs and services.

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