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| Reveal Digital develops open primary source collections from under-represented 20th-century voices of dissent, crowdfunded by libraries. |
Because this digital collection is open access, it is possible to go straight to the website on JSTOR's platform and read everything, regardless of whether you are in an SFPL location or have an SFPL library card. This is thanks to the early funders that donated money to Reveal to make the project a reality. There is no paywall with this collection of periodicals and there will never be.
However, the benefit of having the titles loaded into SFPL's Periodical Finder is that locally relevant independent and underground publications that info-seekers look to us to own can now be identified and accessed using SFPL's tools.
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| Front page of the Dec 10, 1965 issue of the Berkeley Barb, in-part exploring the "Bobby Dylan Scene" of 1965. Perhaps the producers of the recent Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown consulted such a source. |
Take for example the early underground newspaper to serve the civil rights, anti-war, and countercultural movements in the Sixties, the Berkeley Barb, which was published from 1965-1980. The Magazines and Newspapers Center has this publication available on microfilm in the Underground Newspapers Microfilm Collection, which shows up in Periodical Finder through the link "SFPL Print Collection." Previously, users would have to do their own separate legwork to locate the digital surrogates of the title in the Independent Voices digital collection. Now, that link is included in the same Periodical Finder result list as the link to the microfilm holdings.
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| Periodical Finder results for the Berkeley Barb, indicating access through the Reveal Digital collection and through the microfilm collection in SFPL's print holdings. |
Independent Voices is an open access digital collection of alternative press newspapers, magazines and journals, drawn from the special collections of participating libraries. These periodicals were produced by feminists, dissident GIs, campus radicals, Native Americans, anti-war activists, Black Power advocates, Hispanics, LGBT activists, the extreme right-wing press and alternative literary magazines during the latter half of the 20th century.
- From the Independent Voices landing page on JSTOR
Here is a list of the subcollections included in the larger umbrella collection:
- Black American
- Campus Underground
- Feminist
- GI PRESS
- LGBT
- Latino
- Little Magazines
- Native American
- Right-Wing
Let your interests guide you in exploring these enclaves of mind-blowing primary sources created at the epicenter of culture shifts. Sure, searching for a known title like the Berkeley Barb is an efficient way to get to Independent Voices, but there is much fun to be had by browsing. While you're at it, take a look at Reveal Digital's other digital collections, some of them still in-progress in their fundraising phase.
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Jehoiada
Calvin is a memory worker, writer, and zine-maker from Chicago.
Jehoiada is the Archives Assistant for the Johnson Publishing Company
Archive, helping to process the historic photograph collection for
Ebony, Jet, and other magazines and programs. Jehoiada is a fellow in
the University of Alabama’s Social Justice for Archivists Master of
Library and Information Studies program, focusing on memory work that
supports practices rooted in culture and politics outside of
institutional archives. Read his writings about Sleet and the JPC photo
archive at 
