We have much to celebrate and share in the successful development of the open access Catholic News Archive for the education and research communities, particularly so in the context of this year's focus on equity and inclusion.

Catholic newspapers represent a long-standing and vibrant press community that has provided a record of Catholic perspectives from the many communities from which they have emerged.  This includes important resources related to immigrant and minority communities, labor and socialist history, as well as to Church life nationally and internationally.  By making these fragile, difficult-to-locate resources freely accessible online, CRRA members and partners are taking positive steps in support of open access and the inclusion of voices heretofore largely absent from digital news collections.

We invite you to let others in your communities know of our shared support for OA and inclusion! And to join the ACRL webcast on October 21, at 1:00 p.m. Central: “Celebrating Open Access Week: Building Structural Equity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications.

Paul Bracke, Dean, Foley Library, Gonzaga University

"The collaborative culture that enables the participation of newspapers, libraries and archives with limited resources underpins our success in developing the Catholic News Archive."

Jean McManus, Librarian for Catholic Studies and Archives Engagement, University Archives, University of Notre Dame

"Our collection management strategy includes digitizing some papers from our collection for remote management, relieving us of having to digitize the collection on our own."