The Center invites educators, librarians, and representatives of museums, historical societies, arts organizations, and other cultural institutions in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee to attend a meeting at Barnard Observatory on Thursday, April 6, at 2:00 p.m. The two-hour meeting will initiate a survey of humanities resources in the Deep South and begin assessing ways to strengthen these resources through exchange of information and collaboration. The gathering is the first of a series of public meetings to help plan for a Deep South Regional Humanities Center. The project is funded through a planning grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is part of an effort to create a nationwide network of 10 centers dedicated to collaborating with other cultural institutions in their regions, supporting research on regional topics, documenting regional history, preserving cultural resources, developing K-12 learning opportunities, building college-level degree programs in regional studies, and fostering cultural tourism.

The April 6 meeting at Barnard Observatory is scheduled in conjunction with the seventh Oxford Conference for the Book and will provide participants opportunities to attend the April 7-9 program.

Additional information about the April 6 meeting is available by telephone (662-915-5993), e-mail (cssc@olemiss.edu), and Internet (www.olemiss.edu/depts/south). Persons who cannot attend the meeting are encouraged to send the Center information about their organizations by e-mail (cssc@olemiss.edu) or regular mail, addressed to Deep South Humanities Initiative, Center for the Study of Southern Culture, The University of Mississippi, P.O. Box 1848, University, MS 38677-1848.

As part of the project, the Center wishes to determine the extent of the moving image, still photograph, and oral history collections in the five state region. Institutions with such collections are encouraged to contact Karen Glynn, visual resources curator of the Southern Media Archive, by telephone (662-915-7811) or e-mail (kglynn@olemiss.edu). Repositories are asked to furnish information about the size, content, and format of their collections.