The Boston Research Center (BRC)
The BRC is a digital community history and archives lab based in the Northeastern University Library. The mission of the BRC is to help bring Boston’s deep neighborhood and community histories to light through the creation and use of new technologies. Through these technologies, Boston residents can share the underrepresented stories from their community’s past, as well as a deeper understanding of how this past shapes our present.
The BRC is hosted at Northeastern but is designed to be a collaborative effort among many organizations in Boston—civic, research, teaching, and cultural heritage—devoted to developing institutional partnerships and fostering community engagement.
This website shares our current work and gives a sense of the types of projects the BRC supports. The historical materials used here are developed in partnership with various organizations in Boston, including the Boston Public Library and Massachusetts Historical Society.
Learn more about the BRC as well as our plans for upcoming collaboration and research on our About page.
Projects
The BRC’s projects showcase a range of disciplines, research questions, and data sources. Still, they are united in their dedication to meeting and serving neighborhood research needs. Much of this work is supported through relationships started via the Northeastern University Archives and Special Collections, which holds the valuable records of many Boston-area activist and community service organizations.
Learn more about our current projects
Community Engagement
To learn more about how the BRC is working with members of the community on meeting their neighborhood research needs, explore the Community Engagement section of our site. It details some of the partnerships we have made, as well as the framework for how we generally partner with community organizations.
Find out more about our partnerships
Latest News and Events
To learn more about what the BRC is currently up to and how you can participate in our exciting work, check out the News and Events section. In addition to our social media profiles, we regularly update this section with project-wide announcements. This is where you can also read blog entries written by research associates on their current work.
Stay up-to-date on our latest research and events