Dear Colleagues,

I am writing to invite you to a special meeting to be held before the Society of Mississippi Archivists conference this year, to discuss the current state of records of enslaved persons in Mississippi and elsewhere in the Deep South.

The purpose of the meeting will be to discuss the following

–          What have we got?

–          Where is it?

–          What kind of shape is it in?

–          How accessible is it (digitized, transcribed, indexed, etc)?

–          How can we collaborate to improve discoverability and access?

The Society of Mississippi Archivists conference will be held at Mississippi State from April 24-26. The special meeting would be held on the afternoon of the 24^th, starting at 3 PM. Please let me know if you would be able to attend by MARCH 22, 2019.

NB: Please feel free to share this message with interested colleagues, including graduate students, in your state!

I also invite all of you to seriously consider submitting a presentation or poster to the SMA conference. The call for papers is below, and submissions are due by FEBRUARY 7 (deadline has been extended). If you have any questions about the pre-meeting, please do let me know at jmcgillan@library.msstate.edu.

-Jennifer McGillan