New Africana Librarian Arrives at UC Berkeley, January 2008

Jason Schultz, the new Librarian for Africana Collections, arrived at Berkeley early this month. He comes from Georgia State University in Atlanta where he served, since 2004, as the Communications Studies Liaison/Reference Librarian. Previously he was the African Studies Librarian at the Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies at Northwestern University from 2002-2003. While there, he helped create the “HIV/AIDS in Africa” Web site detailing the library’s holdings of public education ephemeral materials from the continent relating to this disease. Jason received a M.S. in Library Science from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science and an M.A. in African Studies from the Graduate College, Center for African Studies both at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Jason was a FLAS award recipient for study of Bamana.

Jason has a diverse array of research interests and experiences in Africana. In 1998-1999 he worked as a legislative assistant for the Africa Policy Information Center (now AfricaAction) in Washington, D.C. His projects there included solidarity campaigns with the peoples of the Niger Delta, debt cancellation, and public education on the conflicts in Sierra Leone and Liberia. While at the University of Illinois, Jason traveled to Zimbabwe on a Ford Foundation program to study local musical expressions in relation to jazz and hip-hop and also to learn mbira performance. His other interests include but are not limited to the formation of the Liberian state, the political thought of C.L.R. James, the African Blood Brotherhood, and other topics related to Pan-Africanism and the Black radical tradition.

Jason is also engaged in community work, serving as director of The Onyx Foundation based in New Orleans. The foundation's projects have included speakers series and student essay contests broadly discussing issues of anti-racism and democracy from below. Onyx also has a book donation program, sending works by C.L.R. James and Selma James to Historical Black Colleges and Universities, the University of the West Indies, Trinidad Oil Workers Trade Union Library, Red Thread Women's Organization (Guyana), and to Abahlali baseMjondolo (South African shack dwellers movement organization).

In Jason's library collection work, he primarily purchases materials supporting Africana research at Berkeley. He will gladly take requests from students and faculty for purchases. He is also available for individual and class library instruction. Jason’s office is in the 218 Doe Library, and he can be reached at jschultz AT library.berkeley.edu or at 510-643-6722.

Berkeley's previous Africana librarian, Phyllis Bischof, retired in 2005 after three decades of outstanding service. In recognition of her work on campus, nationally and internationally, in 1999, she received the Distinguished Librarian award from the Librarian’s Association of the University of California, Berkeley.