What We Do
The Boston Research Center (BRC) is a digital community history and archives lab. The BRC’s mission is to support Boston residents in documenting, preserving, and sharing the stories of their neighborhoods and communities.
The BRC focuses on uplifting voices from historically marginalized and underrepresented neighborhoods of Boston. We believe that local histories are best told by the people who live there. Our own neighbors can help fellow Bostonians —and the larger world—learn from their community’s past, and in doing so foster a deeper understanding of how this past shapes our present Boston. The BRC’s goal is to help bring Boston’s deep neighborhood and community histories to light through the creation and use of new technologies. Check out our projects to see our work!
How We Can Help
The BRC can support your ideas and projects in many different ways. This support might look like:
- Offering free introductory workshops about digital humanities tools and methods
- Developing resources and toolkits to help demystify digital projects, tools, and community history work
- Consulting on project design and maintenance
- Connecting community historians with subject experts, research resources, and grant opportunities
- Providing technical support for digital history projects
- Co-planning and/or promoting events centered on community projects
We provide several pathways to support, from a basic troubleshoot and training consultation to BRC being a close project partner, and co-lead. No matter the project, the BRC offers these services to anyone who reaches out for assistance:
- short consultations for technical consultations, troubleshooting, and light grant proposal feedback
- workshops from our list of topics
- sharing resources from our library of materials including guides and toolkits
- facilitating connections with other archives, libraries, and community groups
If you aren't sure what you need, attend our Office Hours, the third Thursday of every month, in person at BPL Central, Mezzanine Conference Room 1.
Even if you are not sure if we can help you with your idea, we encourage you to reach out and schedule a consultation with one of our knowledgeable team members. To get started, email us at brc@northeastern.edu.
Boston Public Library, Community History
BPL Community History offers workshops to help you get started on your project. Examples include basics of oral history, personal storytelling workshops, managing your personal and community archives, and how to create interactive web history projects. We can also direct you to research materials, Boston area archives, as well as books, databases, and other resources available at BPL and other research institutions.
Sign up for Boston Public Library’s Community History newsletter to hear about talks, workshops, and other programming related to documenting Boston’s deep neighborhood histories. Learn more about upcoming BPL Community History events at: https://www.bpl.org/community-history/.
Northeastern University Library, Digital Scholarship Group
The Digital Scholarship Group offers services ranging from grant-writing support to GIS and data visualization consultations. The DSG also conducts research on subjects like inclusive information systems, data representation standards, and digital repository systems. Working as an applied research team within the library, the DSG seeks out new tools and methods, tests them on real-world projects, and makes them available to the Northeastern community. The DSG supports a wide range of projects, including projects from the NULab for Texts, Maps, and Networks and the CERES Exhibit Toolkit.