The CMIL is excited to be working with Paley Library at Temple University on the acquisition and digitization of the Elizabeth Thoman Media Literacy Archives. Thoman was the founder of the Center for Media Literacy. The archives include years worth of documentation on the Center for Media Literacy and Thoman’s other writings. In the future, the university will house the archives of the National Association for Media Literacy Education and other media literacy organizations.
Elizabeth Thoman, founder of the Center for Media Literacry, also developed the curriculum resources that helped increase public awareness of media literacy education.
WHAT’S IN THE ARCHIVE:
About the Archive
The collection includes 60 boxes of archival materials from the Center for Media Literacy in Los Angeles. The archives consist of about 70 linear feet of Elizabeth Thoman’s library and her correspondence as editor of Media&Values. Personal notes and program materials are available from every major conference since UNESCO’s first call for universal media literacy education at Grunwald, Germany in 1984. This collection culminates in the founding of the Partnership for Media Education in 1997 which, in turn, birthed the current National Association for Media Literacy Education (NAMLE), the American media literacy organization that sponsors the Journal of Media Literacy Education, an open-access, peer-reviewed scholarly journal edited by Renee Hobbs and Vanessa Domine.
There is also a complete collection of the 63 issues of Media&Values magazine as well as several notebooks containing original articles from a wide range of educational publications as they struggled to understand this new kid on the educational block: media literacy.
To check out the entire collection, click here!