JAMES P DANKY                                         Back to Journalism 662 Homepage   Back to African Diaspora Homepage

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JAMES P DANKY


Business Address: Home Address:
Newspapers and Periodicals 261 Hwy 138 South
Wisconsin Historical Society Stoughton, Wisconsin 53589
816 State Street (608) 873-8722
Madison, Wisconsin 53706-1482 FAX (608) 873-8381
(608) 264-6598
FAX (608) 264-6520
E-mail: jpdanky@whswiscedu


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE:

Assistant Librarian for Research and Development - Wisconsin Historical Society 1989 - present

Duties: Research and produce publications and programs; write and consult on grant
applications; strategic planning including Minority Affairs liaison to University of Wisconsin; responsible for collections development for serials; and supervise professional and paraprofessional staff (from 1 to 135 persons)

Newspapers and Periodicals Librarian -  Wisconsin Historical Society - present

Order Librarian -  Wisconsin Historical Society - 1973-1976 


PROJECTS:

Center for the History of Print Culture in Modern America Director 2002 -, Founding Co-Director 1992-2002

A joint program of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and the University of Wisconsin-Madison whose goal is to promote the interdisciplinary study of print culture in the US since 1876 The Center sponsors monthly colloquia, an annual lecture, and biennial conferences Beginning in 2002 the Center sponsors a book series published by the University of Wisconsin Press ( See http://slisweb.lis.wisc.edu/~printcul/ ) 

Newspapers and Periodicals of the African Diaspora Project Director 1998-present

Based at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the project’s goal is to develop an international cooperative documentation strategy for the collection, preservation and access to the thousands of newspapers and periodicals produced by Africans in the Diaspora over the last three centuries Through a network of scholars, librarians, publishers and editors the Project is identifying titles, and related materials, that will help to create a resource for understanding African migration over time http://mendota.english.wisc.edu/~danky/diaspora/index.html

African-American Periodicals and Newspapers Project Director 1989-2001

With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the University of Wisconsin System, the Ford Foundation and other private foundations, this project produced African-American Newspapers and periodicals: A National Bibliography (Harvard University Press, 1998), a comprehensive, cooperative finding aid for African-American serials This guide provided the basis for an on-going microfilming project to preserve these rare materials (See http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/library/aanp/index.html 

United States Newspaper Project Project Director 1982-1989

With funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, this project involved the cataloging of the extensive newspaper collection of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin The project also produced Newspapers in the State Historical Society of Wisconsin: A Bibliography with Holdings, James P Danky, Editor; Maureen E Hady, Assistant Editor (New York, Norman Ross Publishing, 1993)

Native Americans: Library Resources in Wisconsin Project Director 1981-1982

With grant money provided by the Library Services and Construction Act, this project produced three major publications including: Native American Press in Wisconsin and the Nation, James P Danky, Editor; Maureen E Hady, Assistant Editor (University of Wisconsin-Madison Library School, 1982)

Wisconsin State Census Indexing Project Project Director 1977-1987

With Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) funding and a staff of 133, this project produced an index to the 22 million names in the 1905 Wisconsin State Census

Project Discovery and Project History Project Supervisor 1977-1981

The largest series of programs in the state of Wisconsin under the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) The project employed up to 135 workers at a time, in four divisions of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin and at five campuses of the state vocational-technical college system

GRANTS (selected):

Awarded more than $35 Million in Grants, Including:

• National Endowment for the Humanities 1998, 1997, 1995, 1993, 1992, 1987, 1982

• Higher Education Act II-C 1994

• Ford Foundation 1990

• Library Services and Construction Act 1981, 1979, 1978

• Historic Preservation and Conservation Act 1980

• Comprehensive Employment and Training Act (CETA) 1981, 1980, 1979, 1978

• Equal Educational Opportunity Act 1979

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES:

TEACHING:

• Faculty Associate University of Wisconsin-Madison

• Department of Journalism and Mass Communications 1990-

• School of Library and Information Studies 1991-

• Department of Afro-American Studies 1994-

• Visiting Professor University College London, Department of History 1998

• Visiting Professor North Carolina Central University School of Library and Information Sciences 1989

• Courses Taught include: “Mass Media and Minorities,” “The American Right since 1960,” “Serials for Librarians” The first two are undergraduate offerings and the last for graduate students.

CONFERENCES ORGANIZED (selected):

• Religion and the Culture of Print, September 10-11, 2004

• Women in Print, Madison, WI September 13-15, 2001 (cancelled)

• Society for the History of Authorship, Reading, and Publishing (SHARP) Seventh Annual Conference, Madison, WI July 15-18, 1999

• Defining Print Culture for Youth Madison, WI May 9-10, 1997

• Print Culture in a Diverse America Madison, WI May 5-6, 1994

• The German-American Press Madison, WI October 8-10, 1987

• Alternative Literature in Libraries Seminars Philadelphia, Berkeley, and Madison, 1980

• Periodical Publishing in Wisconsin Madison, WI May 11-12, 1978

• Book Publishing in Wisconsin Madison, WI May 6, 1977

PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES (selected):

• American Antiquarian Society A History of the Book in America (Volume 5) Planning Committee 1996-

• Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission, appointed 2002- Vice-Chair, 2003-

• Current Service on the editorial boards of Multicultural Review (Greenwood Press), Innovations (University of Witwatersrand), and SMILE (Studies in Media & Information Literacy Education, University of Toronto Press)

• Purdue University Black Women in the Middle West Project Advisory Board 1982-1986

PUBLICATIONS (selected):

• James P Danky and Wayne A Wiegand, Women in Print: Essays on the Print Culture of American Women from the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Print Culture History in Modern America Series (Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, 2004)

• James P Danky “Reading, Writing and Resistance: African-American Print Culture , 1880-1940, in A History of the Book in America, Volume 4, edited by Carl Kaestle and Janice Radway (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

• James P Danky “The Oppositional Press”, in A History of the Book in America, Volume 5, edited by Michael Schudson, David Paul Nord, and Joan Shelly Rubin (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming)

• James P Danky “Newspapers and Selected Periodicals”, in The Harvard Guide to African-American History, Evelyn Brooks Higginbothum editor-in-chief (Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 2001)

• James P Danky and Wayne A Wiegand, eds Print Culture in A Diverse America History of Communication Series (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1998) Carey McWilliams Prize Winner, 1998

• James P Danky and John Cherney “Beyond Limbaugh: The Far Right’s Publishing Spectrum” Reference Services Review 24, no1 (1996): 43-56

• James P Danky, Ken Fones-Wolf and Elliott Shore, eds The German-American Radical Press: from the 1840’s to the 1930’s (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1992)

• James P Danky, ed Native American Periodicals and Newspapers, 1828-1982: Bibliography, Publishing Record, and Holdings (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1984)

• Sanford Berman and James P Danky, series eds Alternative Library Literature: A Biennial Anthology Ten vols (Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1982-2002

• James P Danky, ed Women’s Periodicals and Newspapers from the 18th Century to 1981: A Union List of the Holdings of Madison, Wisconsin Libraries Boston: GK Hall, 1982

• James P Danky and Elliott Shore, eds Alternative Materials in Libraries (Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 1982)

• James P Danky, Neil Strache, et al Black Periodicals and Newspapers: A Union List of Holdings in Libraries of the University of Wisconsin and the Library of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin Second edition, revised (Madison: State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1979)

• James P Danky, ed Undgergrounds: A Union List of Alternative Periodicals in Libraries of the United States and Canada (Madison, State Historical Society of Wisconsin, 1974)

PAPERS AND PRESENTATIONS (selected):

• “The Black Press in Britain and Europe: What Do We Know, What Do We Want to Know?,” presented to the Black History Month Program, University College London, 1999

• “Print Culture in a Diverse America: Towards a Historical Sociology of Print Culture,” presented to the Edward Clark Seminar, Napier University, Edinburgh, 1998

• “Libraries, They Would Have Been a Good Idea,” presented to the University Library Colloquium Committee/American Library Association Student Chapter, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 1997

• “Pat Robertson is a Publisher, Too: The Christian Right Press in the 1990’s,” presented at the 21st Annual Conference of Historians in the German Association for American Studies, Center for US Studies, Stiftung Leucorea, Martin-Luther Universitat, Wittenburg, February 13, 1998

• “The African Disasporan Press: Creating an International Documentation Strategy for the Collection, Preservation and Access to African-American, Afro-Caribbean and Afro-European Newspapers and Periodicals,” paper presented at the Transatlantic Passages conference sponsored by the Colloquium for African American Research (CAAR), Tenerife, Spain, February 15-19, 1995

• “Are Librarians Responsible? Collection Development in Today’s World,” address to the National Acquisitions Group, British Library, July 2, 1991

• “Wisconsin’s Labor Press: Ethnicity and Radicalism, 1842-1985,” paper presented at American Journalism Historians Association, Las Vegas, Nevada, October 3, 1985

• “From The Female Spectator to Killer Dyke: Thoughts on the Use of Periodicals as a Resource in Women’s History,” paper presented at Preserving Women’s History: Archivists and Historians Working Together, an international conference sponsored by the Sophia Smith Collection and Schlesinger Library, Smith College, May 30-31, 1984

• “The US Newspapers Project, Some State and National Perspectives” Keynote address given at the Indiana State Newspaper Planning Conference, Bloomington, Indiana, December 7, 1983

AWARDS and HONORS:

• R R Bowker –Isidora Mudge Award for Reference Services, American Library Association, 2002

• Librarian of the Year Wisconsin Library Association 1999

• Fellow WEB Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research Harvard University 1997-1999

• Elected Member American Antiquarian Society 1996-

• Distinguished Alumnus of the Year University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Library and Information Science 1993

• Media Hero Institute for Alternative Journalism 1993

• Resident Fulbright Scholar British Library 1991

• Bowker/Ulrich’s Serials Librarianship Award American Library Association, 1987

VITAL STATISTICS:

• Born in Los Angeles, California, October 3, 1947

• AB with majors in history and philosophy (honors) Ripon College 1970

• MA in Library Science University of Wisconsin-Madison 1973

A MORE DETAILED VITA WILL BE SUPPLIED ON REQUEST
Rev. 09/03