The Spartanburg County Public Libraries are proud to announce the receipt of a $500k grant from the Mellon Foundation. This grant will magnify the libraries’ strategic plan and existing Memory Lab program, Attics to Archives. Grant funds will be used to expand digitization and historic preservation services to reach populations that are historically underrepresented. The libraries will purchase equipment to establish do-it-yourself Memory Lab stations for each of our branch library locations. This equipment will include scanners, VHS-to-DVD conversion equipment, and audio recording equipment for oral histories. This equipment is currently used at the Headquarters Library, but the funding will allow us to expand services at each of our branch library locations.

Additionally, the Libraries will purchase a customized vehicle to collect historical documents and artifacts and provide mobile digitization services. Because of the increased programming and equipment resulting from the grant, a new Digitization Assistant will be hired to help staff and the public use the Memory Lab equipment. Community archivist liaisons, identified from underrepresented people groups, will work with library staff to introduce historical preservation services and the importance of sharing individual and community stories.

Since its founding in 1885, the Spartanburg County Public Libraries have gathered, organized, and made available items of historical interest. Local historical research items are maintained in the Kennedy Room of Genealogy and Local History at the Headquarters Library in downtown Spartanburg. The Kennedy Room is a secure research room with a non-circulating collection. Select items are stored in an environmentally controlled vault and available for use upon request. Library users may visit the Kennedy Room or request the delivery of physical or electronic copies. The collection has been limited to books, historically based government documents, maps, microfilm, binders of independently created family histories, and clipping files on local events and activities. Curated binders include photographs, letters, and ephemera.

The first of the Spartanburg County Public Libraries’ strategic planning goals is to “Curate collections that connect people, ideas, and information and preserve the full history of Spartanburg County.” The associated objectives to this goal include “Expand the reach of local history collections to reflect the cultural and ethnic communities in the area. We will build diverse local history collections using strategies such as collecting school yearbooks, town histories, and oral histories from minority populations throughout the county.”

“Grant funding received from the Mellon Foundation will certainly benefit the residents of Spartanburg County by allowing the Spartanburg County Public Libraries the ability to further the Attics to Archives program and allow for the collection of oral histories and the historic preservation of various documents and archives for years to come,” said Todd Stephens, County Librarian, “We are so appreciative of the Mellon Foundation and the work they do in supporting arts and humanities efforts across the country.”

The Spartanburg County Public Libraries applied for this invitation-only grant in 2023 and were among several public libraries across the country to receive funding for various projects focusing on the arts and humanities.

About the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation is the nation’s largest supporter of the arts and humanities. Since 1969, the Foundation has been guided by its core belief that the humanities and arts are essential to human understanding. The Foundation believes that the arts and humanities are where we express our complex humanity, and that everyone deserves the beauty, transcendence, and freedom that can be found there. Through our grants, we seek to build just communities enriched by meaning and empowered by critical thinking, where ideas and imagination can thrive. Learn more at mellon.org.

About the Spartanburg County Public Libraries

Spartanburg’s first public library opened on October 17, 1885, thanks to a generous donation from Mrs. Helen Fayssoux Kennedy in honor of her husband, Dr. Lionel Chalmers Kennedy, a well-known and respected physician who passed away five years earlier. Since that time, the library system has grown to include 10 full-service branch libraries and a Bookmobile. Now operating with a staff of approximately 200 employees, the Libraries continue to strive towards their mission to inspire people to pursue lifelong learning for a thriving Spartanburg County. Each location provides a variety of programming for children, teens and adults and is equipped with meeting room facilities, free internet access, and shelves full of books, magazines, movies, music and more. For those who are not able to come into a library, Homebound services delivers books to shut-ins almost every day. Additionally, many downloadable resources are available on our website, www.spartanburglibraries.org.