In July 2008 ALBA launched its first annual ALBA Teachers Summer
Institute at NYU. The Institute hosts teachers from New York City
public schools and exposes them to the history, art, and politics of the
Spanish Civil War. Part of this immersion includes a trip to NYU’s
Tamiment Library to view the Brigade’s Archives where teachers receive an overview by the collection’s archivists as well as professors
from various departments at NYU.
After this initial success, ALBA decided to sponsor two more
Summer Institutes (as well as year-round professional development
seminars) in Tampa and San Francisco in 2009. The new settings
precluded a site visit to the Archives so we needed to find a way to
bring the Archives to the teachers.
The solution to this dilemma was the creation of a digital library
or archive to be launched in conjunction with the new website. The
website redesign was going to make ample use of ALBA’s collection at
NYU’s Tamiment Library anyway, slowly integrating digital
collections of letters and photos, and eventually including video clips
and oral histories. These primary resources would strengthen existing
lesson plans and other educational modules once the site was
completed and allow for a more dynamic classroom experience. Since
the site was already being designed, we thought it would be a great
opportunity to have a collections database created for ALBA by our
website designers.